The Ludovico

Mayer Hawthorne @ Rotown Rotterdam

2010-01-28T20:56:00.008+01:00

All pictures by Erick Wicaksono & Ffonz

Kevin Nottingham presents: Paul's Boutique - The Samples

2010-01-26T18:51:00.003+01:00

Since the 20th anniversary edition of the album was released last year, Paul's Boutique's production work has perhaps finally been rightly accepted as a mind blowing masterpiece.With each track in the album containing samples from at least 6 different tracks, it was definitely one of the many superb hip-hop albums to be released that year. Yet perhaps the brilliance of the production work has been overshadowed by other records that came out in '89 namely De La Soul's 3 Feet High & Rising and Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back.

Happily for us in 2010, the internet is seemingly jam-packed with generous record geeks like Kevin Nottingham who compiled a track-by-track mixtape of all the sample sources used on Paul's Boutique. He also hands them out for free! To give you an idea on the varied original samples utilized by the Dust Brothers (the same DJ duo/producers responsible for Fight Club's OST and Beck's Odelay), here is a list of the samples used on the first track on the album:

Shake Your Rump

- "That's the Joint" by Funky 4 + 1

- "Cut the Cake" by Average White Band

- "8th Wonder" by the Sugar Hill Gang

- "Jazzy Sensation" by Afrika Bambaataa

- "Good Times Bad Times" by Led Zeppelin

- "Dancing Room Only" Harvey Scales

- "Funky Snakefoot" by Alphonze Mouzon

- "Tell Me Something Good" by Ronnie Laws

- "Unity" by Afrika Bambaataa & James Brown

- "Get the Funk Out Ma Face" by The Brothers Johnson

- "6 O'Clock DJ (Let's Rock)", "Born to Love You", & "Yo Yo" by Rose Joyce

- "Super Mellow" by Paul Humphrey, Willie Bobo, Shelly Manne, & Louis Bellson

Get your copy by clicking here! Or alternatively, get a direct link here!

Kevinnottingham.com's Diggin' In Da Crates section also offer many sample source compilations from various other producers/artists. Check em out and happy listening!

DOOM interview @ Toronto's Eye Weekly

2010-01-25T17:59:00.002+01:00

More DOOM news! It might be still over two months before I get to see one of my favourite underground rappers -MF DOOM live, yet I'm getting overly excited (and a little nervous) already. The reason is quite simple, DOOM (or Viktor Vaughn or King Geedrah - his other aliases) has a reputation to die for amongst indie hip-hoppers for his brilliantly prolific production work and unique rhyming flow (which started with the jaw dropping Operation Doomsday way back in '99). Everybody from Ghostface Killah to Damon Albarn have collaborated with him. Yet his recent 'DOOMPOSTOR' antics - where he sent masked stunt doubles at concerts- have been controversial to say the least and have divided fans and critics.

While my own write up for DOOM is definitely coming, luckily Toronto's Eye Weekly recently completed a lengthy interview with the masked man. Hopefully this piece will fill you in on some background information on the hip-hop supervillain before I launch my full report on the gig in March.

You can read the article below or by linking directly to Eye Weekly.

"For a self-described supervillain, hip-hop MC and producer DOOM has a lot of fans. But with a reputation that’s steadily growing more sinister, is DOOM’s creator trying to alienate his audience — or does this character have an evil mind of its own?

VOL. 1, ISSUE 0: THE ORIGIN

Meet Daniel Dumile. A young MC from Long Island, calling himself Zev Love X, gets on a track with 3rd Bass, “The Gas Face,” around ’89. It wasn’t a character thing at the time; Zev was your typical rapper with an alias, whose flow sounded a bit like a conscious descendant of Slick Rick. He had a crew, KMD, with his brother Subroc and a revolving third member. Zev Love X was just a nickname, like Big Bank Hank or LL Cool J. Zev was Dumile, Dumile was Zev.

KMD made a pretty solid album in ’91 called Mr. Hood, which had some dope tracks like “Who Me?,” putting the boots to racist stereotypes. But when Subroc was tragically run over by a car during the making of the follow-up (the controversial Black Bastards, which Elektra declined to release), Zev lost it and disappeared for something like five years. Word has it he ended up in Atlanta, though in our interview, DOOM remains cagey. “Here on the dark side of Jupiter,” he says, “the weather is great around this time of the year. Atlanta and New York are both home as well.”

Around 1997, Dumile reportedly appears on stage at the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York with his face covered up by a stocking. This time he’s got a grimy flow and weird lyrics about “pure scientific intelligence.” Soon after, a character called MF Doom (the MF stands for Metal Face) puts out a single called “Dead Bent,” and eventually makes a whole LP, Operation: Doomsday, in 1999 — all of which seem to be the product of our old pal Zev. “Doom’s day / Ever since the womb till I’m back where my brother went / That’s what my tomb will say / Right above my government, Dumile / Either unmarked or engraved, hey, who’s to say?” Not me, though I have my hunches.

MF Doom goes on to make a bunch more albums for different labels under different names, including Viktor Vaughn and DOOM (his current MF-free handle) or sometimes even with different characters like King Geedorah, a three-headed 400-foot-tall monster from the Godzilla movies. He makes Madvillainy, a collaboration with fellow MC/producer Madlib that the duo release under the name Madvillain, and that turns out to be one of the biggest indie rap albums ever. Critical respect, collaborations with venerated acts like De La Soul and Ghostface Killah, reliably strong sales figures — it’s all his for the taking. Until one day, the word leaks out that Dumile had been sending someone else to play DOOM onstage. Cue media hand-wringing, and, more damningly, fan outrage.

Dumile doesn’t think it’s such a big problem. Coming off a three-year hiatus following his 2005 Danger Doom project (recorded with Danger Mouse), Dumile gave an interview to HipHopDX to promote the release of 2009’s Born Like This; he addressed the controversy, saying, “I’m a director as well as a writer. I choose different characters, I choose their direction and where I want to put them. So who I choose to put as the character is up to me. The character that I hired, he got paid for it. There’s no imposter.”

For underground hip-hop’s notoriously discerning followers, though, Dumile’s explanation didn’t cut it. A lot of people think sending someone other than Dumile up there to play DOOM is bullshit, and maybe it is. To play villain’s advocate for a moment, though, is Dumile’s failure in the existence of the fake, or in the fact that we can spot him? Besides which, how do we know that Dumile’s the only one who rhymes as DOOM in the studio? For all we know, Dumile hasn’t been onstage since 1993. What’s a live performance, anyway?

“When you have a bunch of like-minded people together in the same place to enjoy music,” DOOM tells me, “there is an exchange of energy amongst us all. That dynamic makes it a unique experience for the listener as well as the artist.”

Whether that can happen without the artist himself in the building is open to interpretation. Dumile to HipHopDX again: “People need to think outside of the box, hip-hop is not just what you expect it to be. This is a growing genre, it’s a creative field. So when you come to a DOOM show, I’m letting all the cats know now, come to hear the show and come to hear the music. “You came out to see me? Y’all don’t even know who I am!”

DOOM UNMASKED, ISSUE NO. 1: VILLAIN

Secretive as he may be, there’s at least one thing that hasn’t changed in the decade he’s been haunting our headphones: DOOM has always been adamant about his status as a villain. And the longer DOOM’s been in the public eye, the less a sensible family man like Dumile would want to be associated with him.

As Viktor Vaughn, the star of 2003’s Vaudeville Villain, he was a thief, a philanderer and a “scoundrel.” By the following year, on Madvillain’s Madvillainy, he had become “the worst known,” making more frequent references to gun violence. One Madvillainy track, “Strange Ways,” addresses the war on terror; while the lyrics feature a pretty unequivocal condemnation of suicide bombing (“all you get is lost children”), it also contains a verse that would make a Fox News pundit turn purple: “Now, who’s the real thugs, killers and gangsters? / Set the revolution, let the things bust and thank us / When the smoke clear, you can see the sky again / There will be the chopped off heads of Leviathan.”

Anti-imperialist critique, or pro–radical Islam screed? Either way, he’ll have a hard time getting off the no-fly list before 2020. The right might forgive him, though, if they knew he had been one of their few supporters back in ’08, as reported in Rolling Stone — he claims to have voted for McCain/Palin. Furious lefties and assorted Obama-lovers assumed at the time that DOOM was messing with them, but when Born Like This dropped last year, it started to look as though the supervillain may have been a single-issue voter: condemnation for “Batty-Boyz,” a track making fun of costumed superheroes using no small amount of homophobic innuendoes (“With the Green Goblin got the Batcave robbed / Bust in, Batman’s head bobbin’, slobbin’ Robin’s knob”) came swiftly from the blogosphere. For an artist with such a web-savvy audience, online approbation actually means something.

Again, Dumile defended himself, telling HipHopDX that neither he nor DOOM are anti-gay, and that the reason DOOM used the slurs is that the superheroes in the song — DOOM’s enemies — just happened to be homosexuals. “I’m not homophobic, I got friends that’s homo,” Dumile insisted. “I’d say to the homos, ‘it’s no big deal, I’m just teasing.’

“I’m a nigga, how about that? You know how much shit I get?”

DOOM UNMASKED, ISSUE NO. 2: AFRO-AMERICAN

As far as I know, there has never been a tradition of Metal Face Minstrels in the US. There is, on the other hand, a long lineage of African-Americans using disguises or personae to deflect or diffuse the expectations placed on them because of their blackness, such as Sun Ra, the Alabama-born avant-garde jazz musician who claimed to be neither black nor white; instead, he was part of an “Angel Race” from Saturn.

Dumile claims to have discovered Sun Ra via Madlib during the making of Madvillainy — that disc’s “Shadows of Tomorrow” is a Sun Ra tribute — and given the heat KMD took from their record label for their lyrical references to the teachings of radical Muslim sect the Five Percent Nation, it’s easy to imagine why a more ambiguous persona might have appealed to or even inspired a grown-up Daniel Dumile. Would “Strange Ways” with its severed heads and suicide bombers have attracted more negative attention if it came from a rapper called Zev Love X?

“I guess a lot of people who are from my era can identify with characters like [King] Geedorah, and once they’re ‘in’ I can drop other jewels that they probably wouldn’t tap into if I came at them a bit ‘hard’ with an extra-militant black-power style,” Dumile told Jockey Slut magazine in 2004. “I don’t want to alienate anybody.”

Or to have to discuss his religious views in every interview. For hip-hop artists, though, the real moral issue is whether you’re a gangsta rapper or a conscious one — a decision that’s hardly even the artist’s to make, given the scorn heaped on gangsters who create an imaginary woeful backstory, as well as quasi-bohemians who shill for (or sign record deals with) major corporations. Most damningly of all, if you’re denied a ghetto pass because you didn’t get shot 19 times before your rap career took off, expect your shows to be full of Common’s “coffee-shop chicks and white dudes.”

As DOOM said on “Ballskin” from Born Like This, “He wears a mask so when he dogs his face / Each and every race could absorb the bass.”

Which means, he explained to me, that “when his face is distorted, you will pay attention to the music,” rather than whether the MC making it has a gangsta scowl or a beatific grin.

DOOM UNMASKED, ISSUE NO. 3: THE SHOCKING CONCLUSION

While DOOM’s stand-in issue is an obvious sticking point for fans, it was inevitable that some of them would brand an MC who wears a mask as a “fake,” one way or another. Ultimately, this is just another version of that boring old authenticity debate, mapped onto an exciting and (relatively) new art form.

Is Bob Dylan more important than The Ronettes because he wrote his own songs? Is Daniel Dumile less of an MC than Jay-Z because one of them is a homophobic, gun-toting sociopath with suspect political views, and the other just pretends to be? You can’t really blame someone like Daniel Dumile for wanting to find a way out of hip-hop’s obsession with the real, or at least, wanting some measure of the freedom that novelists and screenwriters and comic-book artists enjoy. (Not to mention avant-garde and post-modern artists, who’ve been presenting audiences with empty rooms and near-silent LPs for decades. Memo to DOOM’s management: someone’s got to know how to massage this sort of thing in the eyes of the press. Ask Yoko Ono.)

For now, DOOM seems to be done with dummies, at least until he finds a stand-in who’s more convincing than the last few. Something tells me that he’s too smart not to recognize the potential damage that more fake shows could do to his credibility. Whether that something is Dumile, DOOM or just a hunch, who’s to say? But I’ll bet The Shadow knows.

Twenty two of the newest tracks

2009-11-25T19:42:00.006+01:00

Finding new tracks to groove to or write about can be a real humdinger when one's cash reserves die down or the usual tripe served on MTV or your local radio station gets the better of your sanity. Luckily the good folks at 22tracks.nl with its army professional record spinner sfrom across Holland (well mostly Amsterdam) provide people like you and me with a frequently (weekly) updated selection of 22 tracks from genres ranging from Dubstep, Pop, House, Hip-Hop, Soul, Rock and everything else in between.

Furthermore, if you have the urge to show off to your friends what fresh tune you're currently bumping along to, the site offers the chance for you to directly tweet the aforementioned tune.

Public Release presents Eug Wax

2009-11-25T18:36:00.003+01:00

There are cool designs and there are outrageously cool designs. Vinyl designs with genius usage of of its centre hole definitely falls under the outrageous side coolness. Thanks go to Staples design & Public Release for the pics and bags of laughs.

BLK JKS @ London Calling’s Afterparty

2009-11-25T15:55:00.011+01:00

Four years ago I was a virgin to the London Calling experience, a thirty year old, two-day British music festival at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. Knowing that UK bands from Joy Division to Radiohead to Bloc Party have performed at this festival before they gained any mainstream popularity was sufficiently intriguing for me to try and attend London Calling and see what the fuss was all about.

Perhaps it was the fact that 2005 was a year when guitar heavy British indie rock was entering mainstream radio/TV airtime fast that made the festival experience back then a little ‘spinal-tapish’ with skinny teenagers belting away new-wave style tracks with all the predictable clichés the scene has to offer (the clothes, haircuts, three minute-three chord tracks, the works). Don’t get me wrong, I love independently produced rock music as much as the next man yet maybe my pretentious tastes and snobbish attitude to three minute pop-rock sing-alongs got the better of me and my expectancy was too much geared towards an experimental/challenging rock music festival.

Things haven’t really changed in four years time as I received an invitation to attend this year’s London Calling after-party where 4 bands (Golden Silvers, Two Door Cinema, The Films and BLK JKS) from the festival were set to perform to a small yet partisan crowd. Without going into too much detail, the three out of four bands that performed at the after-party were the aforementioned middle of the road British acts playing either post-punk heavy, guitar based pop-rock songs (The Films, Two Door Cinema) or 1980s dance-pop revivalist tracks (Golden Silvers) with unfortunately little to write home about.

BLK JKS however were a different kettle of fish altogether. The South African five-piece were one of the few acts to perform at a London Calling festival hailing from outside the British isles. From tonight’s billing, they were by far the most interesting to watch live too with their eclectic mix of psychedelic & progressive rock, dub reggae, ska, electronica, and of course sounds from Africa. Dubbed by Diplo as the African TV on The Radio, the moniker made perfect sense with respect to their live shows as the band played heavily experimental tracks, a culmination of Deerhunter-esque psych/noise rock, Jamaican based music and Animal Collective style electronica with progressive chord changes akin to a Mars Volta jam. A particular highlight would be a twenty-minute track that featured everything from completely unexpected chord changes, hard drum beats, funky guitar chops, the band taking turns on the vocals which ended with the drummer performing a heart-chilling wail with dub reverbs used throughout the track. The crowd were utterly transfixed. The band followed suit by performing their final song of the night, a seven minute jam as shown in the video above. It was a shame really that BLK JKS were the first band on the bill, performing at Paradiso’s small venue in front of a crowd under 100 strong whiles the rest of the bands gained much more attention; benefiting from the later show time and in the case of Two Door Cinema and Golden Silvers, a much bigger venue.

While BLK JKS’ debut album, After Robots (on Secretly Canadian, 2009) is quite a heavy, complex and long-winded album that might be a little hard to swallow for your average music geek, they’re definitely an act to watch live and their burgeoning reputation is very much deserved. The band’s future forays into creating studio albums will be heavily anticipated, by this writer anyway.

A 'Dam Fine Day

2009-10-26T09:02:00.017+01:00

Imagine yourself stranded in Amsterdam city centre with a city guide in your hand giving you thousands of tips on where to go and what to do with impossibly limited time to do it all in. We at Whiteboardjournal like to make life easier for our readers so should you find yourself in this precarious situation, this swanky one-day guide to Amsterdam compiled by Vivien, a scientist who has a love for art, design and architecture as well as globe trekking around Europe for the past year along side FFonz, a lover of records, mundane historical facts and noodles should be the best way to spend an eventful day in Amsterdam.

The shopping hit list:
We assume our readers are a bit nutty and prefer shopping to having a bite to eat first thing they do after arriving in Amsterdam so we begin the day by targeting a few of the shops in Amsterdam that deserve mentioning. De Negen Straatjes (the nine streets), filled with lively cafes, outlandish second hand shops as well as your externally fresh boutiques, this trendy area will steer you away from the extremely touristy streets of Amsterdam where it now seems to be quite difficult to avoid. First shop stop is SPRMRKT, Rozengracht 191-193, is a supermarket-converted shop (hence the name) that sells clothing collections ranging from Acne to Raf with a touch of retro designer furniture pieces in the entrance. If you’re in the right place at the right time, you might be able to witness a photo shoot going on in this store, better yet; at Hartenstraat 36 you will find the SPRMRKT outlet store you can find clothing at a more affordable price than that seen at SPRMRKT. Still along the line of affordability and De 9 Straajes, Episode, Berenstraat 1 and Zipper, Huidenstraat 7 are just 2 of the many second hand boutiques that personifies the Amsterdam retro trend.

If you want to step out of ‘high-end’ fashion and move onto urban-modern, head down to Waterlooplein where 290 sq meters, Houtkopersdwarsstraat 3 is evidently a concept store that has worked in all ‘290 sq metres’ of space with clothing, accessories, artwork by Futura and even fixed-gear bikes. With 290 sq metres of space to play with and ongoing events, you might be able to bystander magazine launches, art exhibitions or even the international launch of NIKEiD, you are never too far away from ‘the happenings’ in this city. Guaranteed.

Moving away from fashion, Droog Design, Staalstraat 7 is one of the leaders in Dutch Design that produce objects ranging from furniture and lighting to mops and birdhouses. This aesthetically appealing store is a little expensive but we find it more of an exhibition of impeccable design pieces that have provoked and influenced the ‘always changing’ trends in design. It is always pleasant to see how modern design tries to incorporate organic and recyclable materials into functionality and aesthetics.

When it’s music and records that you’re after, Fame Records, the Dutch equivalent of HMV or Virgin Megastore just off Dam Square (Kalverstraat 2-4) will be your best bet for CD, game, DVD and music book purchases with its impressive 3 storeys of goods and copious amounts of discounted goods.

Yet when it’s the more specialised record stores that you crave for, the two best shops to go down to are Record Palace on Weteringschans 33a which features an impressive two storeys of mostly second hand 7 and 12” vinyl ranging from Balinese Gamelan music to musician signed records hanging from the wall (a Lou Reed signed Velvet Underground and Nico LP to name but one). Furthermore Jan, the shop’s friendly and very knowledgeable proprietor would be glad to chat about records all day long.

Rush Hour, a much smaller and very much independent minded record shop around the corner from Dam Square opened in 1997 is one of the smarter looking record shops in Amsterdam with its minimalist interior, urban t-shirts and four listening booths to its credit. Yet don’t let the size of the shop fool you though as Rush Hour acts also as an official distribution point for many leading independent labels as well as being a well-respected Dutch label themselves. Their website www.rushhour.nl features a truly impressive selection of records from the mainstream to the downright outlandish with the ability to serve mail orders to the four corners of the globe. And although they’re specialized in electronic music (techno, house, disco, hip-hop, dubstep, new jazz and broken beats) their supply of funk/soul, rock, latin, jazz, Brazilian and reggae LPs are not to be scoffed at.

When feeling peckish:
When looking for a bite to eat in Amsterdam, Dutch cuisine is not exactly the most exciting or most innovative but one thing that is good is the pannenkoek met kaas en stroop (pancakes with cheese and syrup). It’s not difficult to find a pancake joint in Amsty but Pancakes! Amsterdam, Berenstraat 38 is a personal favourite. This dainty café not only has great pancakes, but the friendly staff and cosy atmosphere will only heighten your pleasantry experience in Amsterdam. If you are after a quick afternoon bite after your long shopping expedition, Winkel, Noordermarkt 43 will provide you with the best Dutch apple pie in Amsterdam. If you simply ask them to serve you with their specialty, appletaart with a side of whip cream will be served to you pronto! Don’t fancy sweets and you are after something quite ‘Dutch?’ You can then enjoy the snacks served at convenient outlets such as FEBO and Smuller found scattered around the city central. After inserting your EUR1.40 you can choose from a frikandel, croquet or fish sticks and a serving of patat (or sometimes they call it Flametjes referring to Flemish fries) met frites sauce (fries with mayonnaise or even peanut sauce) to fulfill your desire to taste a bit of ‘Dutch.’

Other than these Dutch treats, the one and most important thing in Amsterdam is its multi-cultural balance of people, which can only lead to one thing, the abundance and goodness of different cuisines you can pick and choose from. Ranging from Moroccan, Surinamese, Indonesian, Turkish, French, Italian, African, indy burger joints (you name it), it’s there. For these choices, head down to De Pijp district by either taking tram 16 or 24 from Leidsestraat away from central station where all will be revealed. To be more specific, if you aim to get to Albert Kuypstraat you will then find your range of cuisines along with the other streets that also accommodate these varieties of choices. Then of course there’s Chinatown in the heart of the city where as you can guess, most oriental restaurants are congregated.

When needing a puff, a drink and a night out:
One thing everyone seems to know about Amsterdam is of course the city’s relaxed attitude towards soft drugs, most notably cannabis with a cacophony of coffeeshops (official weed selling and smoking establishments) spread around the city. The most famous of all coffeeshops is perhaps The Bulldog (Amsterdam’s first coffeeshop when the new cannabis laws were implemented in 1976), a chain of touristy coffeshops with many outlets found dotted around the city -the Red Light district and Leidseplein to name two. If it’s a coffeeshop with more pizzazz and less tourists you’re looking for, head down to Amnesia in the swanky Herengracht or the Dampkring on Haarlemstraat 24. As coffeeshops adopt strict age rules and compulsory identity verification, if you do want to enjoy a puff in a coffeeshop, always be sure to bring along some form of official identification with you and don’t bother trying to go into one if you’re under 18.

Besides coffeeshops and bars, Amsterdam does boast the two best live music venues in the country, the Paradiso and the Melkweg, both situated in the hip (yet touristy) Lediseplein area which often appear in Ffonz’ live music reviews.

The Paradiso (pictured above) is perhaps the main and best-known ‘intimate’ music venue the city has to offer. With its previous function as a Calvinist Church, Paradiso boasts pretty 19th century architecture featuring religious themed glass stained walls and impressive acoustics. Yet its notoriety as a drug den in the 60s and 70s gave the venue its seedy underground reputation and most bands, DJs or artists who are worth their salt have played a gig in the Paradiso at one point in their careers ever since. A few meters away lies the sister venue of the Paradiso, the Melkweg (translates as Milky way), tucked ominously behind a packed square of bars and cafes in the middle of Leidseplein. Like the Paradiso, the Melkweg gained notoriety in the sixties and seventies yet has shaken up its image since those days as the venue offers not only two concert halls but also a photo gallery, small theatre and hip bar (with pricey drinks). Both venues have embraced the 21st century by both adopting the regulatory non-smoking policy, which can feel weird when attending a concert. For something much more mainstream, Amsterdam’s most glamorous club Jimmy Woo (Korte Leidsedwarsstraat 18) with its tedious (or perfectly normal; depending on your point of view) dandy dress codes would perhaps be your thing.

When it comes to bars and cafes, Amsterdam has a little too many to mention so the best we can do is point you in the right direction. Leidseplein (take trams 1,2,4 or 5 from Centraal Station) is always a great place to start as this small town square and its surrounding small streets are littered with cafes, bars and pubs from the seedy to the hoi polloi. If jazz happens to be your thing then be sure to check out Jazz Café Alto, a legendary jazz den at one time frequented by Duke Ellington and Count Basie, which on many nights feature live jazz trios/quartets/quintets on Korte Leidsedwaarstraat just off Leidseplein.

The streets around the canals (Herengracht, Prinsengracht and Kaizersgracht), Dam Square, Spuiplein are also jam packed with bars and cafes so picking one out would be quite easy. One of the most well known underground hang out places in the city is the squatter’s bar Vrankrijk (pictured) on Spuistraat 216 with it’s strange yet endearing entrance procedures (one would need to ring a door bell and walk past colourful squatter accommodations before entering the bar) yet is unfortunately currently closed due to the city’s ever changing attitudes towards property squatters.

What the guides don’t tell you:
As Amsterdam grows, the city space diminishes. It is not surprising to know that Amsterdam is one of the most expensive cities for rental space, where design and art studios are now relocating to other areas. The NDSM island (pictured below) located behind central station, is a man made island to try and solve Amsterdam’s urban working space problem. Designers and artists are now residing to this island where they are now able to set up their studio at affordable prices. With an eco-friendly café noordenlicht and IJ Kantin, a skate park and various art installations located around the island, this island is an example of how the Dutch have tried to utilise abandoned space into a form of public spacing incorporated to working space, which we believe has shown to be very effective. To top it off, the 5-minute ferry ride to NDSM will also allow you to see Dutch architects MVRDV signature ship container houses that everyone so readily talks about.

The Amsterdam Bibliotheek (city’s public library) is another exquisite example of Dutch architecture that has baffled us all. It’s located at the new-development area east to the central station, where this area houses most of Amsterdam’s contemporary architecture samples. The relocation of the city library has only generated more interest and appeal for the public. This beautifully designed library is fully equipped with all forms of literature and audio as well as your choice to use a mac or pc to check your email. The bibliotheek is always a good pit stop before heading to a subsequent destination.

To enjoy a more modern cultural experience, Westergasfabriek Pazzanistraat 41, will provide you with just that. Westergasfabriek is constructed from a cluster of old gas buildings that are now transformed into a creative factory. Westerpark hosts a variety of events ranging from science to fashion as well as exhibiting independent art work from local artists. This idyllic complex is also a host to a number of bars and cafes including Het Ketelhuis, a small cinema featuring Dutch or international art-house films and documentaries, which can be easily enjoyed by everyone to end the perfect day in Amsterdam.

Last minute tip:
Amsterdam is the ‘bike city’ of Europe, so it is only obvious that the most convenient and enjoyable way to explore Amsterdam is by bike. We can’t express how much more enjoyable Amsterdam is when riding along the canals without a helmet in your best Sunday dress. If you don’t fancy the bike situation, then walking is your next best option. One advantage that walking does give you, are the small alleyways that lead to a surprise around each corner. Don’t be afraid to get lost!

Vivien's parting words:
As for both Ffonz and myself, it is obvious that we both have a clear passion and love for the arts. Whether it is from the portrait posters by OBEY around the city, enjoying gigs at Paradiso or simply just enjoying well-deserved time in a coffee shop, the more I return to Amsterdam, the more I fall in love with this city. Its well-crafted architecture with a convergence of contemporary is one thing that is difficult to spot throughout Europe, yet Amsterdam is able to fuse these two concepts with coherence and flair. As for myself, the current vagabond, Amsterdam is definitely my favourite city to visit as well as a possible city I could settle in. To my convenience, it would have never been as exploratory without my partner in crime Ffonz.

Till next time in another destination around the world,
Viv and Ffonz signing out.

FORTHCOMING COMPILATION OF INDONESIAN PSYCH PROG FUNK ROCK ON NOW AGAIN

2009-10-18T15:49:00.004+02:00

Now-Again, in conjunction with Canadian producer Jason "Moss" Connoy and Indonesian rock legend Benny Soebardja, will release an anthology that represents an extensive survey into the Indonesian psychedelic and progressive rock scene that flowered in Jakarta in the early 1970s. The release is planned for early 2010.

Researcher Chandra Drews, an Indonesian-national who is assisting in assembling the liner notes for the compilation, recently interviewed Soebardja in Holland. His story gives a brief glimpse into what is to come with this compilation...

Visit Stones Throw's subsidiary funk label http://www.nowagainrecords.com/forthcoming-compilation-of-indonesian-psych-prog-funk-rock-on-now-again for the full review.

Thanks go out to Egon and MoSS

Tinggi - the mixtape

2009-10-02T17:53:00.007+02:00

http://rapidshare.com/files/287804417/Mixtape_Tinggi.mp3.html

A tiny toke of Zappa, a large dose of Japan’s Flower Travellin’ Band, a nice roll of Bandung’s very own Shark Move, a good measure of Funkadelic with a healthy amount of African fuzz, West Papuan psych funk and Turkish psychedelia on the side. Top it all off with Harry Roesli’s posse & tripped out hip-hop and hopefully you’ve got yourself a good listen.

The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet - Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention
En Melody - Serge Gainsbourg
Evil War – Shark Move
Meydan Sizindir - Selda Bagcan
They Are Among Us - Part 2 - The Heliocentrics
Ezuku Buzo - Bola Johnson & His Easy Life Top Beats
Se Na Min - El Rego Et Ses Commandos
Huembello – Black Brothers
Allah Wakbarr - Ofo The Black Company
Satori Part II – Flower Travellin’ Band
The Blimp (Mousetrapreplica) - Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band
A Visit to the Gynecologyst - Dr. Octagon
I See Colours – Edan
Wars of Armageddon – Funkadelic
Peacock Dog - The Gang of Harry Roesli
Who Do U Worship? - De La Soul

De La Soul-18 September 2009 Melkweg, Amsterdam

2009-09-22T16:17:00.014+02:00

I tend to avoid concerts involving old fogies playing their ‘best of’ catalogue with an infuriating half-arsed attitude, going through the motions without showing much/any interest and milking the proverbial cash cow for all its worth. But De La Soul have slipped through my fingers enough times for me to miss this gig in Amsterdam’s Melkweg. The fact that this current gig coincides with the rap trio’s 20-year anniversary of their massively influential debut, 3 Feet High & Rising only added my eagerness to take the risk and attend.

You see De La played a huge role in my introduction to and subsequent love for hip-hop music and culture. 3 Feet High & Rising alongside Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back were the first full hip-hop LPs that woke me up to the beauties of creative sampling and imaginative rhyming at a time when experimental rock records (or Bob Dylan) dominated my record player. De La’s debut with its barrage of jaw dropping sampling courtesy to Prince Paul (along with Madlib, one of the true geniuses of quirky hip-hop production) and hilariously imaginative socially conscious peace loving rhymes got me pining for more. Annoyingly every time I had the opportunity to catch them live, something trivial would inevitably come up (travel to Indonesia, University exams, work engagements, etc.) forcing me to be content with stories from friends telling me how extraordinarily fun the whole event was and how I shouldn’t miss their next show for love nor money.

With 2 opening acts supporting De La Soul, it was quite a while before the Long Island trio took the stage. Dutch rap outfit Zwarte Licht opened the set with their mix of American sample based hip-hop and the synth heavy UK Grime with a quite entertaining performance despite my perceived unsuitability of the Dutch language to the rap genre. Harlem native Billy Ray was next to enter the fold with Maseo of De La manning the turntables with Ray hyping up the crowd and belittling the state of modern commercial hip-hop only for Trugoy the Dove and Posdnuos to bum rush the stage a few minutes afterwards.

While hip-hop shows at its worst can involve poor sound quality, stagnant production and a half-hearted MC laying corny rhymes, De La Soul today showcased almost all the positive aspects of a live rap performance. And despite not being a full re-enactment of their 1989 classic 3 Feet High & Rising, a medley of tracks from the aforementioned album, the underrated De La Soul Is Dead, 1993’s Buhloone Mindstate and their fourth album: Stakes Is High was extremely well executed as their constant interaction with the crowd by dividing the room into two competing factions to scream, clap and cheer was refreshing and inexplicably fun. Furthermore, halfway through the performance the MCs started quizzing the crowd on their favourite genres of popular music (blues, rock, country, soul/funk) with the crowd (myself included) booing when country music was announced (perhaps oblivious to the fact that 3 Feet High & Rising was named after a Johnny Cash song: Five Feet High and Rising) and cheering into a frenzy when soul/funk and the name James Brown were belted by Trugoy and the gig momentarily turned into a hard funk and The Godfather of Soul tribute. Brilliant usage of the Seven Minutes of Funk sample by Tyrone Thomas and The Whole Darn Family (also previously used by Jay-Z, EPMD and Gravediggaz) in three separate tracks was also a highlight of the show as were Trugoy, Mase and Posdnuos taking turns manning the turntables at various points during the gig.

The group came back for an encore after about an hour into the show and finished the set with a couple of their best known tracks: Me Myself and I and Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey) and paying a special homage to Amsterdam (apparently the first city they visited outside the US way back in ’89) to a hyped up crowed before hanging outside the venue for a t-shirt signing session. I hope Prince Paul will be involved the next time De La come as I was completely sold by the group’s energy, exuberance and creativity in a live gig even when in their 40s.

Madlib, J Rocc, Lefto & Thunderhesit @ Petrol Antwerp

2009-05-31T15:22:00.015+02:00

Deciding to head off to Antwerp on a long weekend for some city sightseeing but primarily to try and catch Madlib, J Rocc and Egon from Los Angeles’ Stones Throw perform on the Saturday was a bit of a risk as the Petrol club who were hosting the Belgian leg of Madlib, J Rocc & Egon’s European tour didn’t sell any tickets prior to the evening of the event. However, being familiar with Madlib as an eclectic musical mad scientist and having seen him live twice before with contrastingly different yet equally brilliant sets made me decide to splash my Euros anyway and head down south the border.

The Petrol Club is also a place worth mentioning with its location right in the middle of the Antwerp docklands, a good mile’s walk from the last tram stop from the city centre. We were lucky that some other out-of-towners (Parisians, Londoners, Brusselites, you name it) were also looking for the same venue as trying to walk to the damn place without ever having been there was confusing to say the least. Rows and rows of industrial containers would have to suffice as scenery for the seemingly never ending walk too. Yet get there we did and once we got there the location of the club suddenly all made sense. It was a proper underground club with a semi open air concert hall with asphalt as the dance floor and two screens on either side of the room displaying either cheesy 1980s action movies or vintage 1950s porn. Smoking in enclosed spaces had become illegal in Belgium since last year yet Petrol might as well have been in Amsterdam, Kingston or California with ganja smoke filling up the joint. To anyone familiar with Madlib’s THC soaked takes of hip-hop, jazz, funk and reggae this lax attitude to the ‘erb was quite appropriate.

We did have to wait a bit for the main acts to come out with Belgium’s very own DJ Lefto opening the set, providing all the hip-hop heads with their fix of rap classics, funk cuts and club bangers for an hour or so before Canadian acts Thunderheist took over with a whole heartily fun set as MC Isis and her sound-smith Grahm Zilla truly rocked the crowd with their interactive set. As entertaining as the two opening sets were, the crowd went bonkers when J Rocc and Madlib entered the DJ booth with J Rocc starting the show proper at 2am with a turntable purist pleasing 10 minute cutting and mixing of the classic 1973 break Apache (by Michael Viner’s Incredible Bongo Band) followed by entries from James Brown, J Dilla and countless rare and funky rap 45s before Madlib got on the turntable decks.

Now to get an idea of how versatile Madlib (or Quasimoto, Yesterday's New Quinter, DJ Rels, or his many other pseudonyms depending on what musical mood he's in) is, I’ve seen Madlib dee-jay some jazz cuts over live drum playing, Madlib manning the drums in a spaced out jazz break down, Madlib on the microphone dropping rhymes and Madlib providing ridiculous funky samples for a team of virtuoso drummers on the Brasilintime tour so this performance made me anxious with anticipation. This Antwerp excursion had him deck the turntables with the experimental mask with both him & J Rocc working on the 4 turntables between them with some mind mending avant garde scratching and cutting play which will endear and entice some but perhaps alienate others (that’s the whole point of being avant garde). And just when you think things might go really weird and challenging the duo would drop some Jackson 5 or other familiar heart warming samples mixed with some highly off-kilter beats. He also went political with a superbly timed vocal sample of "Ask not what you can do for your country, but ask what the f**k has it ever done for you" added into the mix. To top things off, the crowd was treated to some exclusive unreleased tracks from the highly anticipated Madvillain 2 album (the original 2004 Madvillain album pitted Madlib ‘s production over MF DOOM’s rapping and had music critics falling over each other in praise of Madvillainy). And for someone often branded with the ‘genius’ mantle, Madlib is one humble and fun guy to talk to when I met up with him briefly in Antwep’s The Record Collector vinyl shop and backstage after the show. And that sentiment goes for J Rocc and Stones Throw general manager Egon too.

To read Egon’s blog of the European Tour on Stones Throw click HERE and enjoy some YouTube clips of the gig below:

The Berlin Record Vaults

2009-05-08T11:49:00.027+02:00

Berlin is where it indeed starts to get serious. So far on my travels, excluding London this city is the proverbial child-in-a-sweet-shop for crate diggers, record collectors and music enthusiasts in general (or indeed for bargain hunters, fashionistas, night-life fiends and the anarchists of this world). The districts of Schöneberg, Zoologischer Garten, Friedrichshain, Mitte and Kreuzberg have record stores coming out of its ears creating its own problems for record store reviewers like JK and myself. After feeling smug for assembling a list (The List) of 10 record shops to review with 12 hours in which to fully cover the essential independently run music stores in Berlin, the whole plan went flying out of the window when it became apparent that along streets like Oranier Strasse in Kreuzberg or Tor Strasse in Mitte two or three record stores would pop up seemingly like mushrooms on one single street.

In the end we’ve assembled a final list of 7 full shop reviews as well as 2 other establishments to recommend although we had no luck in reviewing the actual stores. Out of these seven stores, most of them will discuss small businesses that specialize either in rock/folk/jazz/soul/hip-hop/reggae vinyl records. For you diggers hungry for the electronic music record scene which Berlin is equally famous for, you’ll be able to find links to these stores at the end of the review.

Berlin-Mitte

Being the spiritual home of Berlin’s old city centre, this area boasts as many record stores as it does second-hand thrift stores, cheap fantastic food and hip bars & cafes. We actually spent most of our time roaming the many streets in Mitte popping our heads into stores ranging from those that cater to trance DJs and the Euro techo scene to stores specializing in Polish and Hungarian folk songs (?!). In the end here are the four that top our list in Mitte:

The Record Store - Brunner Strasse 186

This one is hands down the hippest looking vinyl-only record shop I’ve been fortunate enough to dig in with their 12” vinyl albums stacked in smart looking wooden shelves (categorized roughly into ‘Black music’, ‘Rock/Pop’, ‘Jazz’, ‘Female/Male Vocals’, Singer-songwriter’, ‘Hip-Hop’ ‘Latin’, ‘Soundtrack’ and ‘Electronic music’) and the 7” 45s kept in neat looking wooden cupboard divided according to genre (Rock’n’Roll & Rockabilly, Country, Soul/Funk, 50s/60s/70s rock/pop, R’nB, 70s Soul/Funk, Indie/Punk).

They might not have the biggest collection in the world but what they do have does indeed appeal to the eye. A €100 (Rp.1.400.000) Euro copy of a 1970s Fela Kuti album straight away springs to mind as does the super cool Shaft-in-Africa LP for a very decent €11.90 (Rp160.000). Their very impressive collection of Blue Note Jazz records is definitely enough a reason to go back to The Record Store the next time I visit Berlin-Mitte.

Da Copo Vinyl - Kastanien Allee 96

Quite the antithesis of the above mentioned ‘The Record Store’, this homey looking store holds copious amounts of mostly second-hand vinyl in a very cluttered space which makes most dusty fingered record hunters feel right at home. Looking for records here is a challenge and time consuming with records divided quite pedantically into very specific genre categories: modern jazz, (plain old) jazz, latin-jazz, World-music, 60s/70s rock, folk, folk-rock, indie&punk rock, reggae, East-German (DDR) music, classical, theater LPs, hip-hop, old-skool hip-hop, 80s electro hip-hop, 1920s&30s German & French cabaret, etc.

Oye Records - Oderberg Strasse 4

Oye Records is one for the aficionados boasting a neat & clean interior, GREAT record choices, records divided according to labels, stacks of 45s, a shelf dedicated to WaxPoetics, located on a hip street in the middle of town, the works.

Their collection is mostly newly pressed vinyl and specializes in funk, hip-hop, soul, disco, jazz with a super healthy dose of techno, house, drum’n’bass, dubstep and reggae. As far as the hip-hop and funk section is concerned I was indeed spoiled for choice with the rap section divided neatly into label based categories and the funk crates neatly stacked alphabetically. Their CD catalog is mighty impressive to with JK bagging Sound Way’s Nigeria Rock Special. Check out www.oyerecords.de for a more extensive look at the shop (and all in English).

Tons of Records - Brunnen Strasse 10

One of the record stores we weren’t planning on visiting yet were pretty much forced to check it out due to the might interesting records put on the window display (Afrika Bambaataa’s Renegades of Funk, Curtis Mayfield’s Roots and a Nas 12” were the standouts).

The interior is minimalist to say the least and judging by the conversation I had with the very friendly owner, it’s a pretty new establishment to boot. This goes halfway explaining the half empty shelves on the wall and the small wooden crates containing the not-so-many records. What they did have though were pretty interesting with a whole category devoted to old East German releases of Western music (Bowie, Beatles, Pink Floyd, etc) and another catering to diggers of Italo-Disco 12” records.

The store looks half completed though so if you do decide to check this store out, I’m predicting it’ll be bigger and better.

Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain

Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain is a new adjoined single district from the old East German borough of Friedrichshain with the West German area of Kreuzberg since the wall came tumbling down. It’s also the home of Berlin’s thriving hip counterculture movement with scores of restaurants, snack bars, alternative cafes & bars, cool second hand clothing stores, left wing political groups (apparently Kreuzberg is home to the Kurdish Communist Party), and of course independent record shops due to the countless immigrants, artists, anarchists, musicians, young entrepreneurs and students who call this part of Berlin home.

Space Honda Records - Zossen Strasse 29

Another record store we tumbled into which wasn't on ‘The List’. Although the chap behind the counter tried his best to convince me it probably wasn’t the best idea to take pictures of this store at that moment as it will change its appearance ‘in a week or two’. Still, this place is massive and with the amount of records it holds it deserves a mention and a full review anyway.

We initially thought that it was a store dedicated to electronic music due to the music blaring out of the in-house speakers but soon realized it caters for pretty much any genre you please. And since time was of the essence, we only managed to snoop around the rock, soul, reggae and hip-hop sections and even that took us the good part of an hour to go through the dusty records. If their rock, soul, reggae and hip-hop collections are anything to go by with, their techno vinyls and other electronic music records in general would be well represented.

Scratch/Soul Trade Records - Zossen Strasse 31

Finding this joint was a bit of a challenge as both Scratch Records and Soul Trade Records made ‘The List‘ but were listed under two different addresses (neither were on Zossen Strasse 31). As luck had it the two merged into a single business and was located next door to Space Honda Records.

And yet another of the hip record stores in Berlin sporting a minimalist interior yet features stacks of records both second-hand and brand new categorized under many sub-genres including a very impressive separate room containing specifically jazz, soul, funk and hip-hop records (perhaps the Soul Trade half of the shop). The front part of the store carries all the techno, dubstep, trance and other electronic based music as well as memorabilia (funky t-shirts, Wax Poetics magazines and posters).

Logo Records - Bergman Strasse 10

One of the smallest record shops we entered and definitely the smallest to make it on this review. It also has the smallest amount of vinyl records in stock as the front half of the store is allocated entirely to a respectable collection of CDs.

The back section of the shop houses mostly second hand pop/rock 12” albums, cheap 45s, a single double sided crate/box dedicated to Hip-Hop, Soul and Jazz vinyl as well as a photo proving that Quentin Tarantino is a frequent punter of Logo Records. At the end of the day what really matters is at this shop you can get youself Air Supply’s tear jerking Lost In Love for just €1.

The Ones That Got Away

Time’s a b*tch so unfortunately we were left to leave out the record stores which were just too far away or other similar pathetic excuses for not going. But since we’re nice dudes, here are other stores you should check out when in Berlin:

Digalittledeeper Records - Linien Strasse 13 (formerly Tor Strasse 102)

One of he most hard to find shops and walk in during opening hours on my Berlin sojourn. Located on a non-desrcript corner on a main road having moved from its original location on Tor Strasse, this seemingly very interesting record shop is only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays (see pic) so we only managed to make some laughable pictures of the store’s facade.

Keywax Records - By appointment only

This one really takes the biscuit when it comes to obscurity as you can only visit the store by setting up an appointment with the owner through his Myspace page. We did try though but unfortunately didn’t receive a reply before our time in Berlin ran out. Still, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try though as this store was voted by berlin.unlike.com as their favourite records store.

Stones Throw Europe 2009 - Peanut Butter Wolf, James Pants, Dam-Funk & Mayer Hawthorne at Paradiso Amsterdam 10 March 2009

2009-03-12T13:20:00.028+01:00

Ah yes, another predictably unpredictable Stones Throw gig I just witnessed and the first one to be reviewed here on Footurama. By now you’re probably guessing that I’m quite a fan of this Los Angeles based independent hip-hop label (although plainly labeling it as a hip-hop label is criminally simplistic) judging by the number of posts and references I give them in my blog posts and my other ramblings on this site and of course you’d be right. Luckily for me the label organized a Carhartt sponsored 2009 European Tour which gives me the chance to show you the reason behind my obsession with the label as the show epitomizes more or less the philosophy behind the label and the various musical boundaries that make the label one of the biggest success stories of independent labels of the last decade.

Whilst I’ll save the detailed review of the actual label for another time, the gig does reflect the predictably unpredictable description I used earlier as label owner Peanut Butter Wolf brought along label new comers James Pants, Mayer Hawthorne and Dam-Funk for the European Tour with their differing-yet-strangely-complimentary musical styles; electro synth rock, throwback Motown-era Soul and electro-boogie respectively to the unsuspecting Amsterdam crowd.

In a not so conventional fashion the owner and one of the major exponents of the label, turntablist Peanut Butter Wolf opened the set (as opposed to ending it) with an audio-video dee-jaying masterpiece where he diced, sliced, scratched and mixed tracks together with corresponding videos mixed and completely random video pieces with apparently no boundaries on genre (covering most styles of hip-hop, rock, dub reggae, 70s & 80s funk, soul, jazz, the works) to a hilarious and genially entertaining effect. You had your traditional hip-hop video clips, classic soul clips, Ernie ‘n Bert rapping, The Jackson 5 all cleverly mixed in a Kutiman-esque video collage which really had the crowd excited. As the show was built up as the Q-Tip after party, the Abstract himself appeared to join in the flurry of dancing which has built up from PB Wolf’s highly interactive set.

*All photos by Erick Wicaksono & Ffonz

Cue James Pants from Spokane Seattle. JP and his band Royal Zodiac (Josh Simon (Keys/Bass), Paul Flores (Keys/Vocals/Sax) and Justin Walter (Drums)) performed after PB Wolf to an energetic 30 minute set performing tracks mostly from his 2008 LP Welcome with a dose of The Doors (covering ‘Touch Me’). I can’t really put my finger on Pants’ actual musical style with its mish-mash of synthesizers, beats, electronic loops, cryptic vocals, guitar riffs with an all round 80s feel to it, but I’ve labeled it as electro synth rock so I’m sticking by it. So to get a sense of the mash of genres that is James Pants and Royal Zodiac, check out the pics and the YouTube clip HERE.

When Mayer Hawthorne appeared next, with only 2 singles released on the label so far it was touch and go to see which direction the gig was heading next. Considering that Hawthorne hails from Ann Harbor, Michigan (just outside Detroit), it’s not surprising that his set was a throwback to 1960s soul with the Royal Zodiac shuffling positions and James Pants manning the drums. Think of The Dap Kings (Amy Winehouse’s band amongst other many great things) with a young Smokey Robinson on vocals and you’ll get a vague idea of this short set. Click HERE for a clip of his heart-shaped 12” recently released on Stones Throw “Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out”.

The whole thing drew to a close with electro boogie DJ Dam-Funk taking over the turntables, laying down almost all past and present permutations of electro funk. His final bow saw Dam-Funk turn into Madlib with him leaving the turntables and taking over the drums instead ended the 3 hour gig while the rest of the performers (Wolf, Pants and Hawthorne) mingled with the crowd.

In the end it was indeed a typical Stones Throw concert in the sense that it involves you attending the concert with an open mind as to what to expect. As with previous experiences I had, this gig had much more of a party feel to it (besides the incessant dancing, the crowd broke the new smoking ban to light up joints) than your average pop/rock concert and the flexibility of the performers was very refreshing in this age of formulaic pop.

Click here for James Pants’ Video Music Diary of the 2009 Stones Throw Europe Tour.

Sudan

2009-03-05T18:01:00.003+01:00

Darfur is a mess, never more so than now. I don't really write much about politics and the world order as much as I would like to, but after sitting down a few minutes ago listening to New Orleans Jazz Funk drumming legend Idris Muhammad's Sudan from his excellent 1976 album House of The Rising Sun and watching Darfur/Sudan related news on the TV over the last couple of days, I had the urge to post a two minute sample of this stunning 11 minute classic.

Idris Muhammad - Sudan

Get this album if you can and as a convincer here's another 2 minute sample of Idris' interpretation of the New Orleans classic House of The Rising Sun, the opening track of the LP.

Idris Muhammad - House of The Rising Sun

Food with Cool Calm Pete

2009-03-02T23:13:00.003+01:00

*Click on the above picture to go to the Theme Magazine site and download the mix.

This is a pretty cool mix by New York beatmaker, MC and Def Jukie Cool Calm Pete I found on Theme Magazine. It's a food themed mixtape with a damned reliable yet eclectic lineup:

9th Creation, “Bubble Gum”
Audio Two, “I Like Cherries”
Gary Bartz, “Drinking Song”
The Beach Boys, “Vegetables”
Beastie Boys, “Egg Man”
BO Junior and Keb Darge, “Coffee Pot, Pt. 1”
Willie Bobo, “Fried Neckbones and Some Home Fries”
Cameo, “Candy”
The Dynamics, “Ice Cream Song”
Fat Boys, “All You Can Eat”
Monk Higgins, “Little Green Apples”
JBs, “Pass the Peas”
KMD, “Plumskinzz”
Kool & the Gang, “Chocolate Buttermilk”
Galt Macdermot, “Coffee Cold”
The Mar-keys, “Banana Juice”
Jackie Mittoo & The Soul Brothers, “Chicken and Booze”
Idris Muhammad, “Bread”
Elvis Presley, “Song of the Shrimp”
Frankie Seay & The Soul Riders, “Soul Food”
Booker T. & the MG’s, “Mo’ Onions”
Norma Tanega, “Bread”
Maggie Thrett, “Soupy”
Barry Ungar, “Lightly Salted”
The Who, “Heinz Baked Beans”
Wu-Tang Clan, “Ice Cream”

Analog Africa 45 minute mix

2009-03-02T17:15:00.003+01:00

Continuing with the goodness which is African jazz/funk, grab yourself the free mix originally mixed for Wire Magazine here: http://analogafrica.blogspot.com/2008/11/analog-africa-selection-vol2.html

Bing!

2009-02-28T19:20:00.007+01:00

*Photo by Ed Zoelverdi

Found two pre-1966 (The Suharto Years) track by prime 1960s Indonesian crooner Bing Slamet with the first one being a calypso-tastic, bongo-licious and conga-delic track which unfortunately can't be embedded. Fear not, click here for a quick access YouTube link.

The only other track of his on YouTube seems to be this 1965 Javaneese slow jazz-folk track. More interestingly, legend has it that this track was the (un)official anthem for the Indonesian Communist Party which will always mean controversy in that(this) part of the world .

Great track to sample though, and check out the still picture used for the video:

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo

2009-02-27T23:10:00.001+01:00

I checked out the famed German based Afrobeat blog Analog Africa a couple of minutes ago and uncovered this tasty YouTube video of Benin's very own Orchestre Poly.

Obey Dilla!

2009-02-22T20:48:00.001+01:00

Wax Poetics' B+ and Obey's Shepard Fairey are responsible for making this super cool homage to late Detroit Producer J Dilla. The 400 prints of this 45cm x 60mcm poster were sold on obeygiant.com but are unfortunately sold out. Read more here...

Crate Digging In Rotterdam - Demon Fuzz Records

2009-02-15T19:23:00.038+01:00

Go to www.demonfuzz.com to access their online store.

Click below to download two minute long samples of Demon Fuzz's Dutch Breaks 'Nou Break Mijn Klomp':

Demon Fuzz - Wie Weet 't Geheim
Demon Fuzz - Het Is Weer Tijd

All photos by Erick Wicaksono & Ffonz

Vinyl is dead. We’ve all heard that before ever since the 8-track cassette player was introduced in the early 1970s. This familiar slogan was touted once again after the advent of the compact disk and with the digital music revolution in place; the record is once again supposedly on its death bed. As digital music is knocking hard on the door of compact discs in terms of number of sales, many predict the physical copy of music to be near extinct.

Yet vinyl-only record stores seem to have stood the test of time in most Western societies and sales of vinyl have steadily increased as many more musicians other than the wax conscious indie rock, hip-hop, and jazz artists have added either 12” albums or 7” singles releases to their music. While many may argue that the crippling economic crisis may put an end to the independent record store as we know it, at least one store specializing in vinyl records in Rotterdam is going from strength to strength in its conquest to keep providing the vinyl junkies a steady fix.

Having been introduced to this store by Stones Throw’s Egon, I was lucky enough to chat with Michael Engelaan and Erwin W. Zimmerman (better known as DJ Git Hyper) , the two brains behind Demon Fuzz and got a glimpse into the workings of this establishment as well as how they see the future pan out for the store in specific and the vinyl loving fan in general.

Whilst Michael and Erwin with the assistance of their sidekick Alex Dahlhaus opened the Demon Fuzz Record Store in 1998, their record selling history goes way back to the late eighties when the pair sold records from their apartment by request and built a hefty arsenal of records and a steady income to fund a physical store on the hip Nieuwbinnenweg in the centre of Rotterdam (number 86 to be precise). In less than 10 years with only word-of-mouth as the main marketing tool and eBay as their online store provider, Demon Fuzz would be a reference point for countless muzos searching for quality records in Holland ranging from George Clinton, Large Professor, Madlib, Kid Koala, Soulwax, Carlos Santana, Chuck D, Idris Muhammad and their ilk as well as selling records ranging from a single Euro to a couple of hundred a pop.

Taking a look at the labyrinth of records available throughout the store (including the basement, back storage and mini office) tells me exactly why the store has the reputation in the city. And because we're such nice people, here’s a simple tour around the cluttered and clausterphobic library of records for your pleasure:

Main Store

Like the name suggests, this is the main area of the store for punters to dig for brand new and second hand 12 inch LPs and singles as well as 7 inch 45s. As the records are categorized by genre and artists within the genre, finding records here is easy as it is overwhelming. The store caters to Grime, Electro, House, Dub, New Wave, Punk, Metal, Psychadelia, Prog Rock and your bog standard Rock/Pop heads but Jazz, Soul, Funk, Disco and Hip-Hop is the main staple of the store and offers various kinds of options for crate diggers with Hip-Hop, Breakbeats, Disco, Funk, New Funk, Jazz, Blue Note Jazz, Soul, Modern Soul and 'As Sampled By crates' to dig from. 12” albums range from a single Euro (Rp. 15,000) for your average Simon & Garfunkel or Blondie album and stretches to around €15-€30 (Rp. 300,000 - Rp. 450,000) for any other specialized genre and €5-€10 for singles (12 inch or 7). In addition, the New Arrivals section which greets you as you enter the store is added to daily and offers new as well as second hand vinyl.

The Basement

Any records you can’t find in the main area would most likely be available in the basement. Ask for the absent record you’re pining for and watch the person you asked disappear into the basement in search for it. Records here are alphabetically sorted with prices reaching a few hundred Euros (a couple of million Rupiahs) serving wax ranging from obscure long forgotten records to sugar coated pop which doesn’t fit the main store or are too pricey to leave on display.

The Producer’s Room

This room within the basement is where the obscurest records are stocked and as the name indicates is where record producers would dig loops and samples. It contains mostly rare UK, US and European breaks, Bolly and Hollywood soundtracks, Dutch Funk, Jazz and Breakbeats to name a few.

The Backroom & Office

Any records that won’t fit into the main store would end up in this huge backroom storage and adjoining small office.

Whilst not busy with Demon Fuzz, the 3 guys are preoccupied with other side projects: Michael runs a vintage footwear store in the same neighborhood (www.vintagefootwear.nl), DJ Git Hyper deejays for various local Hip-Hop groups (Rotterdam's Duvel Duvel is a prime example) and Alex with his graphic design projects. Demon Fuzz's up and coming new website is their main goal at the moment though and with its imminent launch, be sure to check out Footurama for updates on the new look www.demonfuzz.com and their brand new online store in the coming months.

When Aliens Attack - Kid Robot & Stones Throw present Lord Quas

2009-02-03T13:50:00.004+01:00

Ever tried contemplating a week long magic mushroom binge and see if you don't turn into a veg? Madlib has, and far from turning into a raving loony, he created one of independent hip-hop's flagship albums, Quasimoto's The Unseen as a result.

Legend has it that the West-Coast left field hip-hop producer created this album after the psychedelic tour de force for his own listening pleasure before Stones Throw owner Peanut Butter Wolf convinced Madlib to release his psychotropic fuelled album for the public. For you unfortunate enough to not know Quas, he's the helium voiced weed smoking alien who goes around committing grotesque yet quite hilarious murders (cracking skulls with a brick, stabbing someone from behind with a pitchfork, handing out poisoned apples, etc.) accompanied with absurd, obscure and sometimes very catchy samples with a clear tongue in cheek attitude towards the absurdities of mainstream rap.

*Official video, damn strange one at that.

*Not even a video but features one of the best tracks on The Unseen.

Now Kid Robot & Stones Throw can bring the yellow (or blue) alien right into your living room with this action figure.

Even if you don't know who the hell Lord Quas is, having an action figure of a sh*t talking, pot smoking, brick carrying alien can't do you any harm. Read more HERE!

Soul Jazz Records presents New Orleans Funk: The Original Sound of Funk

2009-01-15T16:40:00.003+01:00

Finding good records often gives one the urge to spread the good word. Ever since starting this blog and my other on Footurama, I've pledged myself topost any note-worthy records I happen to stumble accross for anyone bored enough to read.

While The Hague often falls short in the crate digging departement, you do stumble accross some interesting vinyl now and then such as this New Orleans Funk 1960-1975 compilation by Soul Jazz Records at LaLaLand Record Store in The Hague city centre.

As the sub-title proclaims, New Orleans: The Original Sound of Funk, is funk roots at its best. Always known as a hub of musical innovation with its brand of jazz, soul, funk and these days hip-hop, this handy compilation goes back to the early sixties up to the mid-seventies highlighting New Orleans' greatest cultural exports of the time: Aaron Neville, The Meters, Professor Longhair, Huey 'Piano' Smith & His Clowns, Dr. John, The Gaturs and countless others. Click HERE for audio samples of all the tracks on Soul Jazz.

Soundsystem toasting on Pitchfork TV-one week only

2009-01-15T14:36:00.001+01:00

Pitchfork is always a handy and entertaining source of music news. For the lazy folks who couldn't be bother to read articles, there's always Pitchfork TV too which this month exposes Jamaica's role in the development of the modern popular music scene.

Since it's only available for a week only, I suggest you hurry up and check it out here: http://pitchfork.tv/

Seven Funky Minutes

2009-01-12T15:26:00.008+01:00

*Pictures taken from Wax Poetics No. 26. Illustration by Brad Howe

It's always great when you get to real up on some history of a track that has been bobbing in your head for a good few years. I read the Hip-Hop Edition of last winter's Waxpoetics and was gleefuly introduced to Tyrone Thomas And The Whole Darn Family.

Whilst this Virginia based 6 piece was a new name to my years, the greatest track they ever produced has been playing on my stereo in different guises over the last couple of years. Seven Minutes of Funk was a track included in their 1976 album Has Arrived and has been a part of hip-hop sampling history having been used by artists ranging from Wu-Tang Clan, Jay-Z, Q-Tip, Gravediggaz and EPMD.

The article later goes on to explain that due to Tyrone Thomas' trusting nature, he lost 100% of his publishing rights and fifty percent of his writer's. His attempt at contacting the various rap megastars about his willingness to promote other tracks he and his band has to offer fell mostly on deaf ears notably from Jay-Z's camp whose adaptation of Seven Minutes of Funk, Aint No Nigga with Foxy Brown pretty much launched his career. It's a sad tale to hear and only confirms the cut throat nature of the music business. Nevertheless the track is now legendary and the original is still spinned by DJs and fans alike. To give you a taste of the original and how they've been adopted by various rap artists over the years here are a few YouTube samples for your pleasure:

The Whole Darn Family - Seven Minutes of Funk (Audio only):

Jay-Z & Foxy Brown - Aint No Nigga:

EPMD - It's My Thing (Audio only):

Gravediggaz - Death Trap (Audio only). This is personally my favourite adaptation as Prince Paul doesn't just sample the full original bass and beat but really chops them up without losing any of its funkyness:

Detroit Mix City

2009-01-09T22:02:00.012+01:00

Motown Records will be 50 years old on January 12^th 2009. As a tribute to this iconic record label, rather than create a Motown only mix tape which has been done many-a-time before, I together with JK from The Marquee have compiled 29 tracks of the music produced in, songs inspired by or features artists from Detroit Michigan as a nod to the influence Motown has inserted to the rest of the music scene in Detroit.

You’ll of course have your Motown tracks, but also plenty of other Soul, Funk, Hip-Hop, Rock, Punk and Jazz tracks hailing from Motor Town.

So click HERE to access the track. Download the winRAR file onto your desktop and extract to play. Enjoy Detroit Mix City!

1. MC 5 - Borderline

MC5 stands for Motor City Five, and they were only one of a long line of notorious bands to come out of Detroit. They openly admitted to taking LSD and Marijuana, dabbled in radical left-wing politics and was even affiliated with the White Panther, which, though it sounds like it, not a white supremacy organization, but a radical organization aiming to help the Black Panthers. Their music isn’t less bizarre, combining rock n’roll, r n’b and free jazz just to name a few. This track was taken from their first album, Kick Out the Jams.

2. Amboy Dukes - Journey to the Centre of the Mind

Sure this band was the band where the notorious conservative, red neck and all-round primitive Ted Nugent made his name. But this tune was so good; it made the CD reissue of the legendary Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968. It was also on their eponymous second album on Mainstream Records. The cover depicted 50 different kinds of marijuana smoking devices!

3. Iggy and the Stooges - Gimme Danger

This song is one of the highlight of Raw Power, an album that Iggy had remastered so loud, I swear my ears almost bled when I accidentally listened to it on my headphone.

4. David Bowie - Panic in Detroit

From the album Aladdin Sane, I suspect Bowie modelled the tune after the Motown sound. Just check out the backing vocals.

5. Creedence Clearwater Revival - I Heard It through the Grapevine

I Heard it Through the Grapevine was covered many, many times. Gladys Knight and the Pips released it first, then Marvin Gaye came and made it his. Other notable covers of this song include the Slits, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The Creedence Clearwater Revival version is originally 11 minutes long and allegedly, Steve Cropper of Booker T and the MGs played the fiery solo, of which I had to cut half of it just in case you lose interest.

6. Kenny Burrel - Midnight Blue

The Detroit native recorded his signature tune on the legendary Blue Note Records. From the 1963 album with the same name, if you just want to buy one Kenny Burrell album, this is probably it.

7. Donald Byrd - Christo Redentor

You can find this piece on A New Perspective, on Blue Note Records. Christo Redentor means Christ the redeemer, and this song fits its title perfectly. Originally released in 1963, the list of musicians playing on the record includes Herbie Hancock on piano and Kenny Burrell on guitar.

8. Gil-Scott Heron - We Almost Lost Detroit

Though not as popular as The Revolution will not be Televised, this number will remain one of the highlight of Heron’s career. The song tells the tale of the 1966 nuclear meltdown in Michigan, and shows Heron’s worth as a lyricist. Originally on the album Bridges, released December 1977 on Arista.

9. Aretha Franklin - Chain of Fools

Raised in Detroit, she's always been associated with the soul tradition of the city. Chain of Fools was recorded for her album Lady Soul, and this particular version is the unedited version available as a bonus track on the Rhino reissue.

10. Stevie Wonder – Jesus Children of America

One of the greatest exponents of Motown, Wonder started his career on the label since being a child star and never left the label since. This track originates from the album Innervisions (1972) which was one of the first Stevie Wonder albums written entirely by the man himself (as opposed to the Motown hit factory songwriters)

11. Soul President - Got to Have It

I got introduced to this groovy track by the 4^th installation of the Eccentric Soul compilations: The Big Mack Label, a 1960s Detroit based indie soul record label.

12. The Cool Kids – 88

The Detroit based Cool Kids released their second EP: The Bake Sale in 2008 to much fan fare which is clearly a nod to the golden age of hip-hop (87-94).

13. J Dilla a.k.a Jay Dee – Lightworks

Taken from the album Donuts, the last and good-bye album of legendary underground hip-hop producer, MC and Detroi native J Dilla before he lost his battle with Lupus in 2006, this track has been sampled and circled plenty a time amongst the next generation of left-field underground hip-hop producers ranging from Madlib and MF DOOM to Flying Lotus and Four Tet.

14. Erykah Badu - Amerykhan Promise

Badu’s latest album released in mid 2008 on Universal Motown has been arguably her best. Not only does she expand her familiar nu-soul sound, she also delves into 1970s p-funk, hip-hop and jazz amongst others.

15. Mae Young – Let’s Give Our Love a Try

Yet another of the irresistibly funky grooves served up by the good people at Numero Group who were responsible of the Eccentric Soul IV: Big Mack Label mentioned earlier above.

16. J Dilla a.k.a Jay Dee – Workinonit

Another track taken from the highly experimental Donuts, this album was conceived during J Dilla’s last days before his death in 2006. This particular track opens the album and is the longest of 31 tracks which clocks in at 2:57.

17. Ms. Tyree “Sugar” Jones – If You Feel It

This instrumental track is yet another gem on the Eccentric Soul IV: Big Mack Label series.

18. Stevie Wonder – Contusion

Sticking with instrumentals, this jazz-rock track is taken from Stevie’s 1976 Songs on The Key of Life, arguably his most well known album alongside Talking Book. For greater effect, follow up this track with Sir Duke which naturally follows Contusion on the album.

19. Soul President – Get it Right

By now you must be convinced that I’m a sucker for the Eccentric Soul IV: Big Mack Label compilation and you’d be right. If this wasn’t a mixed track list about Detroit, I’d include many other tracks from the 9 other Eccentric Soul series.

20. The Isley Brothers – Get Into Something

Also known as the band that discovered Jimi Hendrix, The Isely Bros let the funk rip on this 70s funk bonanza on Tamla-Motown. The track later became a staple for breaks in the early hip hop block parties in 1980s New York.

21. Stevie Wonder –Boogie On Reggae Woman

That old Stevie Wonder has been used 3 times already should come as no surprise as not only is he a Motown legend, he is also born and bred in Detroit Michigan making it a must for any mix tape proclaiming to represent the music of Detroit. This track also happens to be on 1974’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale on Tamle-Motown.

22. Q-Tip – Manwomanboogie (Feat. Amanda Diva)

A Tribe Called Quest’s main rhyme flower Q-Tip is back from the dead after an 8 year absence from releasing a full album since 2000’s Amplified. The Renaissance is often claimed by critics as one of the few good quality hip hop albums to come out in 2008. That is of course debatable, but the album on the whole is definitely back to Tip at his best and is a must have for this ridiculously catchy track and its funky bass line alone.

23. Eminem – Any Man

Any mention of rap and Detroit often conjures the image of Eminem. Yet rather than pick a track from his better known albums on Interscope, this track back from ’99 on seminal underground hip-hop label Rawkus Records features Eminem at his best: trash talking and tight rhyming over raw hip-hop beats courtesy of The World Famous Beat Junkies®.

24. J Dilla a.k.a Jay Dee – Body Movin' (Featuring J. Rocc & Karriem Riggins)

A straight forward heavy beat with fuzzy electro synthesized bass line featuring Stones Throw records’ J Rocc & Kariem Riggins on The Shining, released after Dilla’s death.

25. J Dilla a.k.a Jay Dee – Wild (Instrumental)

This track is just damn weird and wildly raw which shows the range of producing skills Dilla is capable of, showing why he’s just waaaaaay ahead of his time.

26. The Jackson Five – Hum Along and Dance

The Jackson Five quickly became Motown’s house band shortly after they relocated to Los Angeles from their Detroit hometown, replacing The Funk Brothers. Besides being the platform to which Michael Jackson would go on and conquer the pop world, they also released this track which also became a favourite amongst dee-jays in early 80s block parties.

27 & 28. J Dilla a.k.a Jay Dee – Time: Donuts of the Heart & Geek Down

Another 2 tracks from Donuts where the former was sampled and used by The Roots in their 2006 Game Theory LP as a tribute track to the Detroit producer.

29. Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Make me wanna holler)

Not including a track from perhaps Motown’s best known albums What’s Going On would be quite mad.

No tobacco in your joint please!

2008-12-22T13:17:00.006+01:00

Weed, grass, pot, reefer, ganja, hash, shit, Mary Jane, whatever you might wanna call it, but Holland has long been known as a country tolerating the herb's existance in Duth social life. Coffeeshops are just part of the Dutch cultural fibre as nasi goreng stalls are for us.

Yet as from July 1st 2008, coinciding with the tobacco ban in Dutch cafes, bars, clubs and restaurants, punters in coffeeshops will have to either smoke pure weed (Dutch grass is usually mixed with tobacco) or as is the case in some coffeeshops, smoke in a limited smoking area.

Here are a few bad quality mobile phone picks of the post-smoking ban Christmas atmosphere at Rotterdam's Reefer Coffeeshop:

GZA - Paard van Troje, The Hague. 20 November 2008

2008-12-04T15:01:00.005+01:00

At last, a rap concert like it says on the tin. Members of the crowd putting up Wu signs upon request, the gig starting late, a blind drunk MC picking up femmes to join him on stage, a member of the audience fainting and needing medical help, terrible opening acts, it was all there (except for the stereotypical guns and bling)! Yes this was the Wu Tang Clan sponsored GZA concert at The Hague’s Paard van Troje (The Trojan Horse) a few weeks ago and it was indeed everything I expected it to be.

Were you one of those cats who were spellbound by Wu Tang Clan’s Enter the 36 Chambers when it dropped in ’93? I was 10 back then so it took your narrator here a full decade to catch up with the rest of the world in being puzzled, intrigued and addicted to the 12 tracks that made up the seminal hardcore rap album. Actually I’ve even asked myself the question why I fell all over this album which was not only not danceable and extremely gritty in production but also crammed with misogyny, talk of chopping people’s heads off and all that jazz. Then it all dawned on me: it was precisely because people couldn’t dance to it, it was because the production was gritty, creepy as well as minimalist and the lyrics so far out that I loved the rawness and directness of it all. The rap game changed from either jazz layered alternative hip-hop acts like De La Soul & Black Sheep or the LA G-Funk of Dr Dre and Snoop to this modern (at the time) New York hip-hop.

Although many argue that The Wu haven’t produced anything remotely close to the dizzying heights of their debut album ever since, 1995’s Liquid Swords by Wu celebrated rapper GZA is often hailed as one of the best RZA produced Wu Tang solo efforts. Unlike many other Wu Tang albums where the storyboard is usually dominated by cocaine deals and dark humour (something I feel Wu Tang are extremely underappreciated for), Liquid Swords is cold, precise, scary and damn right disturbing. The kung-fu samples taken are from one of the creepiest: Shogun Assassin (1980), and it compliments the RZA production and lyrics perfectly. Throw in a few complex metaphors on hatred of record labels, chess battles, Staten Island and The Nation of Islam, and you have a masterpiece of New-York rap.

Liquid Swords was 13 long years ago and The Wu Tang Clan have released 4 more studio albums since, including 8 Diagrams released late last year to mixed reviews. Cutting the album has apparently left The Wu in a bit of a strut with rappers Ghostace Killah and Shallah Raekwon branding RZA a ‘hip-hop hippie’ over his alternate guitar heavy production of 8 Diagrams and rumours of the group never performing this new album over a live audience. 2008 saw The Wu tour Europe and the US with little or no material from their latest album to show for. They were scheduled to tour Holland when I saw that GZA, Wu Tang’s most senior member was to perform his 1995 classic only a few months after The Wu play. Add the fact that it was to be held in The Hague and not Amsterdam (meaning no middle of the night, nightmarish train-rides back home), my mind was made up.

The gig started an hour late, leaving the audience entertained to a Wu Tang affiliated Dutch rap group Sluwe Vosz and OjaweL, whose only distinction for being Dutch was the language used in their rhymes; the production and rhyming flow were no different to a mediocre rap duo from Harlem or Boston or anywhere else in the US of A. The less said about the Dutch duo the better, but despite lacking originality the two MCs did their best to fill the venue and rile the hip-hop heads in the crowd for the arrival of The Genius and his merry Wu Tang crowd. Whether they played a Dutch version of Wu Tang sounding tracks to get the crowd in the mood and not due to their minimal creativity remains to be seen.

Dressed in a simplistic hooded top, jeans and beanie hat, GZA took the stage with the now-familiar 1970s kung-fu loop “When I was little, my father was famous, he was the greatest Samurai in the empire…”, Liquid Swords’ opening sample, booming in the background (provided by DJ Sueside). He looked every bit as convincing. It may have been 13 years since he dropped the seminal Liquid Swords LP yet his delivery and timing this time around definitely does justice of GZA’s title as Wu Tang’s best lyricist. Liquid Swords was recited from back to front with clinical precision with other Wu Tang member Killah Priest joining The Genius after a couple of tracks from the album. After about an hour, all 13 tracks from the 1995 classic were covered and just when the crowd were fidgeting and getting restless thinking that the gig was about to end, GZA and Killah Priest laid out their standard Wu Tang tracks from either Wu’s 5 other studio albums and a few from GZA’s solo efforts.

The trio went on for another 30-35 minutes which involved the abovementioned girl grabbing, audience fainting, drunken rapper (referring to Killah Priest’s alcohol consumption) antics which was entertaining to say the least. Performance wise it could be underwhelming for the underground hip-hop heads who expect improvisation to live sets but if it’s Liquid Swords that you wanted, you definitely got your money’s worth!

MC Phoenix

2008-11-23T13:56:00.002+01:00

Picked up the newspaper in the train the other day to find out that Joaquin Phoenix has decided to call it quits on his acting career to concentrate on music. Just when I was dreading another singer songwriter with a toothache (must have been his Johnny Cash portrayal that gave me this idea), Stones Throw revealed Phoenix debuting his rapping career with Stones Throw nu-funk DJ Dam-Funk in Los Angeles’ Funkmosphere. More pictures to be found here.

Voodoo Funk mixes

2008-11-23T13:43:00.003+01:00

Old records are intriguing. Old records from Africa collected by avid vinyl junkie/travelling DJ responsible for Voodoo Funk are just über-cool. Check out his mix dubbed ‘Everybody get down’ here.

2001: Madlib v Cut Chemist

2008-11-23T13:33:00.003+01:00

The good guys from Pitchfork always make life easier when trying to dig out cool videos. This gem is the 2001 live gig of Los Angeles' finest hip-hop disc jockeys Madlib & Cut Chemist (Jurassic 5's record spinner) at LA's Root Down available for your videwing pleasure until Friday 28 Nov 2008. Get all the episodes here

So long Mitch, and thanks for all the drumming! Mitch Mitchell: 1947-2008

2008-11-13T17:09:00.005+01:00

Say what you will about The Jimi Hendrix Experience, whether they could have been steadier, could have improved musically, could have lasted for longer than 3 years and all that, yet a massive difference in pop-culture and pop-music they did make. From 1966-1969 the pop charts were invaded by 3 young dudes with afros who played their instruments like lead instruments. Jimi had the mad playing skillz and perfected the guitar burning act whilst Noel Redding was the silent bass guitarist who left the group in ’69. Yet Essex born Mitch Mitchell laid the bare beats for the trio and played a huge role in creating the ‘Jimi Hendrix Experience’ sound (that The Band of Gypsies sound nothing like The Experience is partly down to his absence).

Mitchell’s jazz background as a session musician brought him to play with The Coronets, Johnny Harris and the Shades, The Pretty Things, Georgie Fame and The Riot Squad to name but a few before joining the Experience after meeting his guitar smashing partner in ‘66. The 3 years that followed saw Mitch lauded with the tiresome ‘one of the best drummers in the world’ tag but that claim wasn't without merit as The Experience were regular inhabitants of the top 40 charts as well as being on the receiving end of glowing reviews from the critics as Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland sold like hot nasi goreng.

Mitchell’s departure after his stint with Jimi’s Woodstock 69 live band Gypsy Sun and Rainbows saw him part of the underrated 70s rock group Ramatam as well as a sought after session drummer up till his untimely death in Portland on Wednesday 12 November 2008 just 5 days after completing the 2008 Experience Hendrix tour across the US.

After Noel Redding’s death in 2003 and Jimi Hendrix’s in 1970, the departure of Mitchell leaves us with no surviving members of the seminal Jimi Hendrix Experience. A sad day indeed.

Afrika!

2008-11-12T16:57:00.014+01:00

I’ve been getting more and more intrigued with African popular music for quite sometime now. While getting attracted to music from the grandmother continent of popular music is relatively easy to do, it started off quite tricky as African music tended to be labeled under the ever-patronizing name World Music. While the term gives an initial impression of an orgy-of-sounds and genre mixing from different corners of this earth, my initial naive illusion soon gave way to the perception that it is just an easy way of labeling all non Anglo-Saxon music under an easy no-brainer name. This isn’t helped by the fact that most pop albums that had the terms ‘World Music’ suspiciously attached to it, from pop-folk albums like Paul Simon’s Graceland, latter albums of the Talking Heads, the immense jazz of Weather Report, to modern indie-pop outfit Vampire Weekend, sounds and rhythms from the African continent were evident by the bucket loads.

My recent escapade into proper African Music (you know, music by actual African musicians) started with an introduction to the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti & Africa 70 a couple of years ago. Nigeria’s answer to James Brown is arguably the perfect embodiment of the fusion between African beats and the American R&B sounds of the 60s and 70s. His politically infused, Pidgin English speaking, over-10-minute-long tracks take James Brown’s rock steady funk drives and combining them with African chants, congas, bongos and drums (led by Tony Allen, recently recruited as drummer for Damon Albarn’s The Good, The Bad & The Queen) were a fresh wake up call on how insanely cool African music can be. The release of 1960s and 70s African highlife, juju and Afrobeat tunes through Nigeria 70-Lagos Jump complied by UK Based Strut Records and the ever increasing popularity of New York based African music blogs Awesome Tapes from Africa and Voodoo Funk only served to strengthen this fascination with (specifically) West-African music.

Fela Live

The whole shenanigans surrounding Live 8 2005 and Bob Geldof’s non-usage of African artists due to his notion that they’re not quite good enough to attract world wide attention made me even more curious about modern acts from the sub-Saharan Africa. This led me to be lucky enough to uncover the gem that is Amadou et Mariam’s Dimanche à Bamako. Amadou and Mariam are a blind Malian couple (together since both attended school for the blind over 30 years ago) who have been producing steady rock infused West-African music since the late 90s through a plethora of Bamako and Paris based record labels. Yet their breakthrough came in 2005 when Dimanche à Bamako was released on NoneSuch Records to raving reviews from the world wide music press. The fact that the album was produced by the French- Basque Latin God, Manu Chao (who also naturally falls under the umbrella of ‘World Music’) helped add to the crisp production and popularity of the album immensely. In true Manu Chao style he made the fusion of African rhythm with heavy blues undertones and Latin-European style production seem effortless.

Having completed a lengthy 3 year tour around the US and Europe which had them play Chicago’s Lollapalooza and the African Express festival in London to name just two, this Malian duo are to release their 8th studio album to date, Welcome to Mali on November 17th. The fact that this album will be produced by Blur/Gorillaz/The Good, The Bad & The Queen front man Damon Albarn will add to the commercial & critical appeal of this sought after record. Also, anticipating just how Albarn plans to further enhance the sound of these two artists is almost half the excitement.

Amadou et Mariam on the BBC Jools Holland Show

Amadou et Mariam are indeed leading the way to popularising African pop music to the world yet anticipate more change and improvements in public perception in a time where African influenced changes are en vogue (I’m looking at you Obama).

GZA The Genius

2008-11-10T19:25:00.008+01:00

1995 was a whole 13 years ago whilst your narrator was only 12 years of age when GZA the Genius of the seminal New York hip-hop group Wu Tang Clan released his now legendary Liquid Swords on major label MCA. Many critics have claimed this chess, martial arts, Staten Island New York projects and Nation of Islam themed album as one of the best solo Wu-Tang albums alongside that of Raekwon The Chef’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… and Ghostface Killah’s Fishscale.

Luckily for Footurama, GZA will be performing this mid-90s rap classic in full at a concert at The Hague’s Paard van Troje on Thursday 20 November 2008. Stay tuned to read a full coverage from this excited writer!

Here's a clip to quench your thirst:

What we want? Soul Power! Soulnation Festival, Jakarta 18 October 2008

2008-10-23T10:44:00.002+02:00

I recently cast my mind back to the previous decade of life in Jakarta by trying to remember who and where western artists were invited to play and entertain in Jakarta. Sure enough only a handful of artists spring to mind; Metallica at Lebak Bulus sometime in the 90s (ended with riots), Foo Fighters, Beastie Boys, Greenday & Mick Jagger at Istora Senayan to name a few were the handful of artists who played in the nation’s capital where tickets were as good as gold dust and attendance a mere dream. Let’s not even mention any alternative acts shall we (Sonic Youth withstanding)? A decade and the fall of Orde Baru later, the entertainment industry in the capital seems to have been turned on its head. A Deep Purple gig here, The Roots concert there, Megadeath belting out their metal tracks, The Bravery appearing at Ancol, Rihanna showing her Barbados backside later on in the year. Things have changed for the better.

The Jazz World has been slightly different with the Java Jazz and the Jak Jazz festivals a constant and regular occurrence in Jakarta boasting heavyweights of the genre down the years. Yet these festivals are mainly geared towards Jazz aficionados and any rock/soul festival has been conspicuously missing from the lists of events the capital can offer. Whilst no rock festival is yet to occur, the good people from Java Jazz have had the good sense to organise Jakarta’s first Soul/R&B/Hip-hop (I hate using this term, but call it black music if you like) festival on the 17th and 18th of October 2008. Footurama of course didn’t hesitate to attend this festival and bring you a comprehensive report on the latter day of this two day festival. Why the latter day only I hear you ask? Mainly because alternative acts like Blackalicious and Arrested Development were scheduled to appear on the 18th and as you know, our mission is to provide you, the reader, with alternative news and reviews.

The festival itself, being the first, was not without its faults. First of all, many of the prospected artists who were due to appear changed from week-to-week and in some cases from day-to-day. From boring bling-bling rappers like Souljaboy to big time MCs like Snoop Dogg to artists Footurama were dying to see such as DJ Premier appeared and later disappeared from the list of performers. Worse still, Arrested Development were scheduled to play on the 18th and disappeared from the list on the 11th hour leaving many fans rightly disappointed and highly confused. Secondly, the promotion of the festival perhaps could have been better with very few print and electronic advertisements used to promote the show. Relying on word-of-mouth would be much more beneficial once the festival has already been imprinted in the minds on Jakartans and not for the first occurrence. That said having a festival like this in itself was nothing short of revolutionary as Soul Music Festivals are not widely available in Europe, never mind South East Asian countries.

The festival was held at Istora Senayan with 3 outdoor major stages circling the main indoor grand stage (where the most popular/mainstream acts were held). Dotted around the area were also stalls for sponsors as well as copious amounts of food vendors/stalls which differ greatly from festivals held in the western hemisphere which tend to be dominated by alcohol selling stands. While this provided festival goers with their necessary food requirements, the multi orgy of stalls made most of the few people who attended spread out and not congregate in front of the stages. This made most of the performers play in front of a small crowd hardly exceeding 100 people for the small stages.

Surprisingly the act that attracted the most number of punters (outside of the main stage) was Jamie Aditya Graham, a local musician/ex-MTV VJ/travel channel host whose nu-soul band combined modern soul keyboard chops with a slightly more laid back jazzy sound of 90s acid jazz outfit Incognito. Add that with some political jabs/references and spontaneous humour by Jamie, it was a thoroughly enjoyable performance by this local act and gave a positive prospect of the nation’s non-pop musical landscape. After his show ended I ventured down to the main stage to try and get a glimpse of Arrested Development only to find out that R&B band Blackstreet were playing their radio friendly tracks instead to the enthusiastic crowd (the biggest I saw on a single stage throughout the festival) that filled the main stage. I was fortunate enough that Arrested Development didn’t get a chance to play as cameras were off limits from the main performing stage (which was confusing to say the least).

Amid all this confusion I visited the other smaller stage to find out that Dutch acts La Melodia & DJ KC The Funkaholic were performing who appeared courtesy of Kindred Spirits, an Amsterdam based record label/collective responsible for releasing Madlib & Ivan Conti’s 2008 album Sujinho. It was such a shame that they performed only in front of a very small yet partisan crowd hardly exceeding 50 spectators. This was a particular shame as their very hip-hop orientated performance displayed the art of sampling manipulation at its finest by the aforementioned DJ KC The Funkaholic (who recently released a John Coltrane tribute: the Love is Supreme EP on Kindred Spirits). I’m also compelled to give a special hats off to MC La Melodia and the band who kept up their performance despite the absence of an actual credible crowd.

Following these Amsterdam geezers were Blackalicious, one of the main reasons Footurama attended this festival. All of the main suspects attended the show with DJ Chief Xcel, MC Gift of Gab, two excellent backing vocalists and the quite frankly jaw-dropping Parisian keyboard player (all present in the 2006 Blackalicious DVD set: 4/20 Live in Seattle). Blackalicious mixed track after track from their 3 previous albums: Nia, Blazing Arrow and The Craft with clinical precision with The Gift of Gab adding the hip-hop standard call and response routines. The short yet intricate instrumental session between Chief Xcel and the Parisian keyboard player was the highlight of the performance even if it only lasted for about 2 minutes. Sadly this posse wrapped up their performance after 45 minutes or so out of the scheduled 1 hr 15 minute slot which was perhaps not completely surprising as performing in front of a crowd totalling less than 100 (the rest were busy ogling Ashanti at the main stage) was bound to be uninspiring to a certain degree. After the band failed to heed the encore calls, the crowd left shortly afterwards and so did yours truly to cap off the evening.

Yes there were promotional problems, yes most of the acts played to a small crowd yet it was truly heartening to see such a festival showcasing both commercial and alternative Soul/R&B/Hip-hop acts held in Jakarta. Better still Soulnation is planned as an annual event which should only get better and better in the coming years.

For further information on Soulnation 2008, please click here

Pictures to follow!

Say shit, Goddamn, get off your ass and jam!

2008-09-17T15:00:00.016+02:00

As previously discussed on these pages, 30 years ago George Clinton and his posse created arguably one of the most far-out R&B albums to date, 1978’s One Nation Under a Groove. Not only did he release that bombshell, G Clinton was also responsible for his personal crazy rainbow coloured dreadlocks, guilty of creating a band/funk circus which consistently produced fantastic drug fuelled concept albums, helped create the sound of gangsta rap (G-funk), wore wacky and truly brilliant stage costumes as well as employing virtuoso, prodigal and insane live musicians. For me this was definitely one of those stages where I regret not being born 30 years previously for me to be able to see Clinton and his funkateers in the flesh.

Now I was convinced that I wouldn't be able to see all of his theatrics live since his beloved P-Funk (Parliament-Funkadelic, Plainfield-Funk, Psychedelic-Funk, depending on who you hear and what you read) was disbanded sometime in the 80s and although Clinton himself has been working on solo albums ever since P-Funk folded, I never expected to see another live outing by arguably THE most explosive black rock/soul/funk band ever to have graced stage and record. Furthermore, reunions are not always a good thing either: the hullabaloo around Led Zeppelin’s reunion was probably bigger and more news-worthy than the actual reunion gig itself and this was my concern when learning that I had managed to get myself tickets for this P-Funk show. 30 Euros (Rp. 400.000) was quite a sum to splash out too but luckily for me and for the majority of punters at the Paradiso that night, the P-Funk lineup was probably at its best since the mid to late 70s. OK, Eddie ‘Bootsy’ Collins wasn't there, neither was Bernie Worrell, nor Billy “Bass” Nelson, nor the deceased Eddie Hazel but a show they did still put on.

I can try and describe the gig in a couple of pages but perhaps it's best to illustrate that the show in its entirety was like pressing ‘play’ and ‘auto mix’ of your entire P-Funk collection and seen it done in front of you live…in medley! From the mid-to-late 1960s Parliament tracks, early 70s Funkadelic’s hazy psychedelic rock, mid-to-late 70s Parliament fuzzy funk were all tightly preformed with George Clinton holding the 15-piece orgy together in a tight knit group. He may have arrived an hour late into the set but the band kept the crowd highly entertained up till that point with Garry ‘Starchild’ Shider (Rhytm guitar, dude with the diaper), DeWayne "Blackbyrd" McKnight (Guitars, general band director), Michael ‘Kidd Funkadelic’ Hampton (Lead guitar, successor to Hazel) forming the backbone of the rest of the group to groove to. The crowd went ballistic by the time Clinton entered the stage, where most of the Parliament-Funkadelic classics such as 1971’s Maggot Brain was belted out (yes, a full brain bending 20 minute version of it). Singles and album tracks like Flash Light (1977 - Funkentelechy Vs The Placebo Syndrome), Star Child (1975 – The Mothership Connection), Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow (1970 - Free Your Mind…And Your Ass Will Follow) and Atomic Dog (1981 – Computer Games) to name but a few were cut, mashed, and jammed into one song and another for hours on end. Every time the crowd anticipates an ending to their set, they’re proven wrong.

In true P-Funk style the band called it a night after 3 ½ hours of jamming, singing and rapping (endurance concerts were one of their traits back in their heyday). If you came expecting a full-blown P-Funk gig, you won’t be disappointed. If you came having no expectations at all, you will still have left Paradiso blown away (either by the length of the gig, the virtuosity of the players or both). I certainly said shit, Goddamn and I got off my ass and jammed!

All photos by Erick Wicaksono & Ffonz

Here are a few clips to see Geroge Clinton's P-Funk in their 70s heyday:

And say children, what does it all mean?

2008-08-26T17:07:00.005+02:00

Way back in ’83 two geeky white boys namely Douglas Di Franco and Steve Stein (Double Dee & Steinski) both entered Tommy Boy Records’ contest for an original remix of tracks they later christened Lesson 1 - The Payoff Remix. Their entry won the competition hands down and has ever since become a hip-hop classic. The duo added two extra mixes namely Lesson 2 - The James Brown Remix and Lesson 3 - The History of Hip-Hop in 1984 and 1985 respectively and the 3 ‘Lessons’ have been bootlegged, referenced, sampled and paid homage to by producers and DJs ranging from DJ Shadow, Prince Paul (De La Soul) and Cut Chemist (Jurassic 5) to name but a few.

With the 25th anniversary of Lesson 1 - The Payoff Remix looming large, Nate Patrin of Pitchfork Media conducted an interview with the maestro himself, Steinski. Click here to read the full interview.

And speaking of the 3 remixes:
1. Lesson 1 - The Payo ff Remix

2. Lesson 2 - The James Brown Remix

3. Lesson 3 - The History of Hip-Hop

These are the breaks! - Kurtis Blow in Stereo

2008-08-25T12:14:00.011+02:00

Kurtis Blow

Released: 1980

Mercury Records

What is the first rap record you’ve heard? If you’re in your mid-20s and spent most of your life in Jakarta then Snoop Doggy Dogg, Biggie, bor the forgotten (quite rightly) Coolio were most likely to feature on your list. Yet for the wider world and New York City in particular, the first full-scale Bronx approved rap record was 1980’s Kurtis Blow. Sure, Sugar Hill Gang’s 1979 radio hit Rappers’ Delight was the first universally accepted rap record to successfully make a crossover appeal yet ‘The Breaks’ put hip-hop on the map as well as coining the term ‘break’ for the first-time.

With hip-hop culture and rap music spreading around the American East Coast as well as slowly reaching other parts of the world in early 1980, a popular jive talkin’ rapper by the name of Kurtis Blow who already made a name for himself as a break-dancer and DJ in his native Harlem and Queens picked up the mic and made the transition to MC and in an even more important timeframe for this fledgling music genre, Kurtis Blow caught the ears of Mercury records and soon signed up to release his signature record and single on this label: The Breaks.

The Breaks contain all the elements in this new culture which still rings true to when you think of rap music. Although The Breaks rely on live musical instruments as opposed to loops from a turntable, the track features deft rhymes with various homophones of the word ‘break’ (“If your woman steps out with another man/("That's the breaks that's the breaks)/And she runs off with him to Japan/And the IRS says they want to chat/And you can't explain why you claimed your cat/And Ma Bell sends you a whopping bill/With eighteen phone calls to Brazil/And you borrowed money from the mob/And yesterday you lost your job/Well, these are the breaks/Break it up, break it up, break it up”),an insanely funky rhythm guitar going on in the background as well as a few extended drum beats (the hip-hop term of the word ‘break’) in the middle of the record for the break-dancers to go crazy to. This single track became a staple for other hip-hop DJs to sample for many years to come as well as it being used and referenced in other areas of popular culture (featured on the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City OST to name but one).

The album itself is also a classic in the genre with the tracks using mostly the same formula as The Breaks with delightful variations to each track. In fact the first five tracks of the original LP (and the last 2 from the CD) are all personal favourites of mine and not even the major-label-induced two weak tracks of the album ‘All I Want in This World (Is to Find That Girl)’ or the rock-induced ‘Takin’ Care of Business’ take much off Kurtis Blow (the album) from being a classic and elevating Blow himself to the likes of Afrika Bambaataa, Kool DJ Herc and Grandmaster Flash as the first pioneers of hip-hop.

the breaks - kurtis blow

Side A (LP):

Rappin' Blow, (pt.2)
The Breaks
Way Out West

Side B (LP):

Hard Times
Throughout Your Years
Hard Times
Takin' Care of Business

Bonus tracks (CD only):

Christmas Rappin'
Breaks (Instrumental)

I know he got soul – Isaac Hayes (1942-2008)

2008-08-13T14:45:00.008+02:00

Photos: Charles Nicholas/EPA

I’m a complete sucker for record labels (read: independent labels). They intrigue me: how it's run, how they stay afloat and especially how they create their own distinctive sound. Now how has the death of Isaac Hayes have anything to do with record labels I hear you ask? Simple really, one of those legendary labels under the genre of Soul is Stax Records based in Memphis Tennessee where Hayes played a huge role in the development of the label, especially in creating the legendary Stax sound.

Isaac Hayes passed away on August 10th 2008 in his Memphis home after more than 40 years in ‘The Biz’. Having been a talented child musician, Hayes joined Stax Records as a session musician and staff songwriter backing up and writing for luminaries such as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and of course Booker T & the M.G’s to name but three. This lead to bigger and better things, namely a solo career which made Hayes the soul icon the he was best known for. His first 5 full record releases under Stax helped redefine his and Stax’s Memphis 1970s soul sound: the soulful Barry White-esque, long jazzy breakdowns of the 4-track Hot Buttered Soul (’69), The Isaac Hayes Movement (’70) …To be Continued (’70), the wah-wah backed funk of Shaft (’71) as well as the ever super hard to find Black Moses (’71). If James Brown single handedly created funk and hard funk in particular with his choppy guitars, rock steady beats and incessant screaming & shouting, Isaac Hayes was the Godfather of polished funk as his tracks were long winded sexy affairs with a slower fuzzed out sound accompanied by his slow crooning vocals.

Photos: Ronald Grant Archive

The decline and bankruptcy of Stax in the mid-70s spelled the end of Hayes’ first period of stardom. This was followed by the creation of his own record label ‘Hot Buttered Soul Records’ (under ABC Records), Scientology, film appearances (Escape from New York, Miami Vice, Flipper, Dr. DooLittle 2, etc.) and his most recent persona as Chef in the cartoon series ‘South Park’. In a strange twist of fate Isaac Hayes also appeared in a 2008 film, Soul Men, alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac who passed away a day before Hayes. So here’s goodbye to Isaac, a legendary songwriter, performer, actor and voice of a cartoon character. Isaac Hayes certainly had plenty of SOUL!

In the meantime…crate digging in Praha

2008-08-03T15:46:00.019+02:00

Now there are many things a beautiful Central European city like Prague can offer; 13th century bridges, grandiose castles, renaissance style streets, medieval markets, the list goes on really. Yet if its music records that you’re after, the city doesn’t disappoint either. Yours truly took time out to venture to 5 nicely varied record shops in Prague city centre to try and serve as a small guide for anyone foolhardy enough to take a break from sightseeing, beer drinking and absinthe sampling to search for Vinyl (and Compact Disk) joints instead.

Music Antiquariant – Národni 25, Prague 1

Placed in front of a huge graffiti daubed wall close to the National Theater, this place struck me as the main HMV/Aquarius store for LPs and second hand CDs in Prague. The Vinyl section is divided mostly under rock/pop and the other genres namely jazz, classical, reggae, punk, metal, Czech pop/rock and the amusingly tiny section labeled Black Music are scattered throughout the fringes of the store. Prices are modestly priced ranging from 100 Cz (€4/Rp. 56.000) to 400 Cz (€16/Rp. 230.000) which doesn’t include the discount area LPs and CDs which go from around €1/Rp. 14.000 each.

Disco Duck - Karlova 12, Prague 1

This is my favourite store in town just a stone’s throw away from the aforementioned 13th century bridge (Charles Bridge) with an impressive collection of alternative records comprising mostly of hip-hop, reggae, soul, nu-wave, rock, punk, techno, garage, break beats, and a cool selection of t-shirts and vinyl bags as addition. The collection is by no means complete but the records they do have are interesting and you could be surprised at some of the records they do have lying around. I bagged myself a 1982 Sugar Hill Gang 12” as if to prove the point.

The downside with any seemingly interesting small record shop are the prices which in Disco Duck’s case doesn’t drop much below 300 Cz (€13/Rp. 185.000) for a 12” single and 500Cz (€21/Rp. 300.000) for a full length LP.

Maximum Underground - Jilská 22, Prague 1

The name describes this store pretty well. It’s by no means a straight forward record store as it sells anything required by the underground youth culture of Prague ranging from clothing, footwear, body accessories, and of course CDs and LPs. The music section of the store is also mostly attributed to the hard techno, drum & bass, punk, grime, dancehall, house, garage, metal, gothic sounds and beats.

Bbarák Hip-Hop Shop - Vodičkova 41, Prague 1

Situated in a Blok M style mini-mall, this place does exactly what is says on the tin; it sells clothes, caps and other hip-hop paraphernalia which of course includes rap, crunk, Czech & Slovakian rap, trip-hop, reggae/dancehall, and break beat 12” singles and full length LPs. The LP section might only comprise of 7/8th of the entire store but as it’s quite genre specific the selection provided yielded surprises with quite a few 12” singles from rap classics like Wu-Tang’s Protect Ya Neck, Jeru The Damaja’s D’Original to name but two. Prices are also reasonable ranging from 150 Cz (€6/Rp. 84.000) to 500Cz (€21/Rp. 300.000).

Black Point Music - Zlatnická 6, Prague 1

This small and cozy little record store with a friendly shop keeper is located on a small street in the tourist free area of Prague whose selection of LPs and CDs mostly comprise of good alternative rock/folk, blues and jazz. It also features an eerie yet surprisingly welcoming poster of Tom Waits on the window and his music is heavily represented in the vinyl section of this store. Black Point is also official distributor of Fat Possum Records, a Mississippi based blues rock revivalist record label with artists like The Black Keys and Solomon Burke in full supply in this particular store. It also has a cool selection of jazz LPs with my fantastically priced 100 Cz (€4/Rp. 56.000) full length 12” of human drum machine jazz legend Billy Cobham’s Supraphon (‘74) purchased here.

Spaced out there

2008-07-11T14:22:00.015+02:00

Out There

Released: September 2007

Now-Again

http://www.stonesthrow.com/nowagain/

The Heliocentrics - Sirius B

It’s about time I sat down and start writing about one of the wildest albums I’ve heard in the last few years instead of just listening to it over and over again and keeping it from the rest of civilisation. Whilst Battles’ Mirrored woke me up to 2007 math rock, The Heliocentrics’

2007 record Out There sent me to hyperspace without really knowing what genre of music I’m listening to.

Even through The Helios are signed to Stones Throw’s subsidiary funk label Now-Again, to call this album just plain funk would be like calling Miles Davis just a Jazz trumpeter. This instrumental album starts off with a voice sample of a stewardess introducing the listeners to the journey they’re about to take into a world far away. This world has an orgy of sounds and influences: Free jazz-check, fuzzed out funk-check, middle-eastern influences-check, African percussions-check, flower-power psychadelia-check, Javanese Gamelan-check (?!?) the list goes on and on. Malcom Catto - the drummer (Dj Shadow’s drummer amongst others) is noticeably the de facto leader of the group as his drums dominate the album without even playing one bore fest of a drum solo. The steady and highly funky beats he sets up are complemented perfectly by Jake Ferguson-bass & Thai guitar, Mike Burnham- modular synth & effects, Jack Yglesias- flutes, percussion & santur, Adrian Owusu- guitars, oud & percussion, James Arben- clarinet, tenor & baritone sax, Ray Careless- alto, tenor & baritone sax, Max Weissenfeldt- vibes & percussion as well as Khadijatou Silcott-Fraser- vocals (very occasionally).

Staying true to the Stones Throw tradition, The Helios are superb musicians producing superb pieces of work with almost no publicity. A quick Wikipedia search on ‘The Heliocentrics’ will give you 0 results. It’s a sad state of affairs so if a spaced out-jazzfunkrockpsychadelia happens to be your thing, go beg, steal, threat…anything really to get this album.

Side A:

1. Intro

2. Distant Star

3. Flight 583

4. Once Upon a Time

5. Beyond Repair

6. Sirius B7. Untitled

Side B:

8. They Are Among Us - Part 1

9. The Zero Hour

10. Joyride

11. The American Empire

Side C:

12. Before I Die

13. Intermission

14. Age of the Sun

15. They Are Among Us - Part 2

16. Winter Song

17. A World of Masks

Side D:

18. Sounds of the East

19. Somewhere Out There

20. Second Chance (K2’s Prayer)

21. Return Journey

22. Sirius A

23. Falling to Earth

24. Outro

Yèkatit - Mulatu & The Heliocentrics LIVE
by granjeros

Gettin’ down just for the funk of it!

2008-07-08T16:59:00.007+02:00

One Nation Under a Groove

Released: September 23 1978

Warner Brothers

1978 was quite a wild year for popular music with disco, reggae, punk, new wave, rock and jazz-fusion dominating the radio waves. Abba’s ‘The Album’, Talking Head’s ‘Fear of Music’ and The Clash’s ‘ ‘Give ‘em enough rope’ amongst others were the chart toppers at the time who all reshaped the music scene for the next decade at least. The R&B world in the US was also going through a change where the sounds of funk and poetry of The Last Poets amongst others would later on form hip-hop. No-one really outside James Brown can be mentioned synonymously with funk except for George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic (P-Funk) and in ‘78 they released a bomb shell.

The P-Funk name had already existed for more than a decade before the release of One Nation Under a Groove where they pretty much re-wrote the rules of Rhythm & Blues by not only incorporating modern (late 60s – mid 70s) rock into their sound but also using blunted out and synthesized bass lines instead of drums and the wah-wah to create their rocky-funky sound. By the late seventies, George Clinton and his band, although by no means mainstream, were considered bedrock in African-American culture and music. In ’78 they released arguably their best album: One Nation Under a Groove which in short encapsulates all of their previous albums both as Parliament as well as Funkadelic.

Thirty years has passed since the release of ‘One nation…’ and George Clinton still plays a strong part in modern Afro-American music with his presence on rap albums (Blackalicious, Snoop Doggy Dog, Wu-Tang) and has truly put music fans under his groove. Why his name is not as a house-hold name as James Brown, Isaac Hayes and Quincy Jones I do not know.

Main LP:
"One nation under a groove" – 7:29
"Groovallegiance"– 7:00
"Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock?!" – 6:18
"Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo-Doo Chasers)"– 10:45
"Into you" – 5:41
"Cholly (Funk Getting Ready To Roll!)"– 4:27

Bonus EP:
" Lunchmeatophobia (Think!...It Ain't Illegal Yet!)" – 4:12
"P.E. Squad/DooDoo Chasers ('Going All-The-Way Off' Instrumental)"– 4:18
"Maggot Brain" – 8:28

Amerykahn Soul

2008-07-01T23:06:00.011+02:00

New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)

Released: February 26 2008

Universal Motown

Thank God for Erykah Badu in the age of The Pussycat Dolls we live in now. Her third studio album New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) gives that hope back of the old-school soul diva managing to mix all sorts of afro-centric genres to create something to give you goose bumps. If you’re looking for 40 years of Afro-American culture rolled up nicely in 1 joint then you’ll be ecstatic with this album released late February 2008. P-Funk, break-beats, hip-hop, soul, nu-soul, old-skool R&B, weird yet deeply psychedelic chanting voices and samples of political orations to name just a few, is just as varied as the topics she deals with: anti-Iraq (Soldier), self confession (Me), philosophy (Master Teacher), hip-hop (The Healer), loss of a friend (Telephone), decline of society (Twinkle) and of course drugs (The Cell).

Side A:

"Amerykahn Promise" (E. Badu, W. Allen) – 4:16
"The Healer" (E. Badu, Madlib) – 3:59
"Me" (E. Badu, S. Husayn) – 5:36
"My People" (E. Badu, Madlib– 3:25

Side B:

"Soldier" (E. Badu, K. Riggins) – 5:04
"The Cell" (E. Badu, S. Husayn) – 4:21
"Twinkle" (E. Badu, S. Husayn, Sa-Ra) – 6:57

Side C:

"Master Teacher" (E. Badu, G.A. Muldrow, S. Husayn) – 6:48
"That Hump" (E. Badu, O. Keith) – 5:25

Side D:
"Telephone" (E. Badu, Questlove , J. Poyster) – 7:48
"Honey" (E. Badu, 9th Wonder) – 5:21

The Electric Reporter: Joe Zawinul (1932-2007)

2008-06-27T20:02:00.009+02:00

A year has almost passed since the passing of one of Jazz’s great underrated innovators, Joe Zawinul in September 2007. Sadly I’ve only managed to read a single obituary on the man since his death so here’s my two penny’s worth of thoughts on the brains and main innovator behind Weather Report.

The Austrian might not sport a household name as a Jazz artist unlike his fellow contemporaries Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea yet besides Davis, there are few as innovative in bringing new sounds to this old genre and adding a certain crossover appeal to mainstream listeners. Having being educated in music from an early age, Zawinul quickly left his hometown Vienna to follow his love of Jazz to the US. It was in the US that he started to attract attention from the Jazz aficionados, amongst other was saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and swiftly earned Zawinul a spot on Miles Davis’ legendary Bitches Brew sessions along with future Weather Report collaborator Wayne Shorter.

To you cats who are familiar with Bitches Brew, you would probably have seen Zawinul’s Weather Report sound shaping up. Yet with WR he and Shorter added electronic sounds and synthesizers to their classical Jazz repertoire which was quite unheard of at the time and quite despised of by Jazz purists around. Yet Weather Report continued to shape and reshape the sounds of Jazz with a handful of superb albums notably Weather Report (’70), I Sing the Body Electric (‘72) and the two Jaco Pastorius featured albums Black Market (‘76) and Heavy Weather (‘77).

R.I.P Joe, a revolutionary musician who passed away before his time, much like the appreciation of his music.

It did take a nation of millions!

2008-06-27T20:00:00.004+02:00

It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

Released: 28 June 1988

Def Jam

Now yours truly wasn't stuck to his boombox in 1988, but 20 years ago Public Enemy came up and shook us up with It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. It might be kinda hard to imagine a mainstream rap group releasing anything remotely conscious or political AND got heard by the common man in The Bronx, Camden or even Menteng but these cats did with a bang.

Rap groups like this don't exist no more: Chuck D was the voice, Flava Flav the annoying hype man and Terminator X speaks with his hands with the unruly Bomb Squad handling the production. Bring The Noise, Don’t Believe the Hype, Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos, Louder Than a Bomb and Rebel Without a Pause were outrageously fresh as they were influential. With hip-hop starting to polarise with the rise of NWA influenced G-funk it was one of the final ‘Golden Age’ records to address social issues without advising everyone to shoot everyone else they thought was at fault.

‘It Takes A Nation’ was loud, street smart, a thorn in the establishment, and sounded like a riot of beats and melody all in one record. Sadly for us it took another nation of millions to stop caring about social and political issues in rap thus buying much less of these records to push conscious rap mainly underground.