You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July, 2006.
Thanks for your patience as we get started with this blog site. We’re starting to get visits from around the world, which is wonderful. We’ll have some audio for you soon, and hopefully we can broadcast next Wednesday. We appreciate your support and interest! New content will continue to be posted almost daily. We would appreciate any comments on each entry!
As a special weekend promotion, a free store record with free shipping (anywhere in the world) will be mailed to whoever wins this music debate. Keep it to a few paragraphs. We’ll pick the winner and display the entry on Tuesday August 1st, announcing the winner!
Here it is: Who’s the most important Detroit or Michigan area recording artist or group of all time, and tell us why!
jsREVIEW:
I can only imagine how weird it would have been to be an avant garde band in Hamburg, Michigan during the early ’80s. I suspect, first of all, that the Inserts were not just an avant garde band, but rather THE avant garde band of 1983.
Sounding heavily influenced by the No Pussyfooting collaboration between Eno and Fripp, this quartet plays mostly guitar synthesizers (and note explicitly that there aren’t any keyboard synthesizers on the album), with a Rhodes for a touch of jazz fusion.
From tracking down Marc Taras, who is thanked in the credits and now works at local shop PJ’s Records, the main halmark of the band was its spontaneous and improvisational nature. They’d roar into the studio, start the tapes and jam, splicing anything that worked back together post hoc. Rather than ending up disjointed, the album feels spacious and anxious with broad washes of taut guitar tones playing over jittery post-punk bass work.
Clean and “modern” sounding, there’s a fairly dystopic sci-fi sound to the ordeal, like Vangelis’s Blade Runner without the plot. Still, for fans of bands like Cluster, Eno & Fripp, or even Psychic TV, there’s a lot to love about The Inserts, and you’ll never see this disc for sale again.
(Having learned that one of the members of the band, then going by birth name Mark Murrell, is now WCBN DJ Ed Special, look to this space once Cousins Vinyl can get him to talk about the album!)
jsREVIEW:
Recorded in ‘79, this rune-titled album (see also: Led Zep) sounds less like the food co-op drum circle that the back cover photos might evoke and more like a shambolic Fela Kuti fusion groove-out.
The first strength is Robbel Kuyper’s polyrhythmic percussion, which overlays congas and surdo over Tom Kalep’s crisp and simple drumming. On top of that, David Reinstein busts out a surprisingly well-toned tenor and soprano sax bed for the melody (though given the four folks credited with multiple and overlapping melodic instruments, it’s hard to tell who did what when). Toss in some uplifting lyrics echoed beyond, and Prismatic at their heights sound like an accoustic Funkadelic circa ‘72, just gang-tackling you with the drugged out lurve, man.
And before evaluating whether this album is for you, lemme let you know my bias— I think the weakest parts sound like Stevie Wonder’s middling Innervisions ballads, which I hate. The smoove which occassionally posessed him does sieze Prismatic too, and those moments (like the intro to “S.m.i.l.e. [Dedicated to Timothy Leary]) bore the hell out of me. Maybe it’s because of that soprano sax, which has a hard time not sounding smoove. Anyway, a lot of people like Innervisions, so whatever.
Prismatic also have a bit of the ADD going on, which is mostly a blessing in their case, as it tends to keep the dreaded slick r&b from taking over things too much before they bust out a slap bass and freak out, and since they’re just so goddamned uplifting you can’t hold anything against ‘em.
Especially when they turn out tracks like “Nothinkg” (sic), which sounds like Material have quantum-lept into The Fixx in some sort of alternate funkverse, or “Huna” which is what Frank Zappa might have written if he could have ever gotten high and relaxed.
A solid jam album from a time before Phish, this one’s equally suited to chill-out rooms or as a gift to your hippy mama, and is flavored with enough funk to make anyone with toes to tap smile.
jsREVIEW:
The first thing to do: Turn up your bass.
Now turn it up again.
This is a sexy, funky, bassy, sticky, strutting, fucking album.
“They say I’m nasty, they say I’m wild… Say you will, say you will..” Davis sings on “If I’m In Luck You Might Pick Me Up,” the album’s opener. Davis was nasty, was wild, to the point where religious groups picketted her shows. While she’s rarely overtly raunchy, especially by today’s standards, the permeating sexuality that oozes from her Tina Turner growls and the sparse, punchy basslines would make Bill Clinton blush, and would still earn her brickbats if any of the Religious Right were listening.
By the time this self-titled debut came out, Davis had already had songs written about her (the “Mademoiselle Mabry” of then-husband Miles’ Filles De Kilimanjaro), and was credited with introducing Miles to the music of Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, leading to his dark funk rebirth.
Miles would divorce her because she was too wild and too sexy, and on “Anti-Love Songs,” the throbbing bass underscores this perception. Davis isn’t gonna love you because she’d fuck you so hard you’d break, and on “Your Man, My Man,” she’s more dangerous than Me’Shell NdegéOcello ever dreamed of being.
It’s not just Betty on this either, as she’s backed by the very best and funkiest musicians of the time: Larry Graham (bass) and Greg Errico (drums) of the Family Stone, The Pointer Sisters sing backup, Doug Rodrigues an Neal Shon of Santana’s band, classic sessioners like Merl Saunders and Hershall Kennedy make this the Avengers of funk and are the best band since Motown’s Funk Brothers.
This is the Just Sunshine Records first pressing, making this a bit rarer than the usual Vinyl Experience or MPC pressings, and if the rest of Cousins Vinyl would let me, this’d be mine. It’s almost a tearful parting, putting it up for sale, but goddamn… Just give it a good home, OK? Put it on any time you need to fill the floor or have the dirtiest sex of your life.
jsREVIEW:
It’s hard to imagine the impact this album had, especially from such a distant vantage point. I was three in 1982, so I had no idea that an entire genre of music was being spawned as Satan laughing spread his wings.
The title track is the tune that gave its name to the entire genre of Black Metal, the Satanic, thrashing lucifer for legions of anti-social burnouts for generations. Unapologetically vile, bleak and antagonistic, this album was a touchstone for the post-industrial kids of wastelands like Newcastle, where the band hailed from, and for kids like James Hetfield or Trey Azagthoth, who took metal over the top and created it as a popular genre.
For a view to their staying power, think about roughly contemporary songs “Teacher’s Pet,” and “Hot for Teacher” by Van Halen. Diamond Dave’s mugging and the campy video have landed Milo and friends in an endless cycle of VH1 snarkfests, while the Venom track (one of the dumbest on the album) still feels powerful and threatening. And it’s a pale shadow next to tracks like “Raise the Dead,” “Countess Bathory” or “Leave Me In Hell.”
Coffin-stuffed with eternal classics, this is an essential album for any metal collector.
Get ready for a great auction this Friday. About 250 LPs will go up - all selected by us from a huge collection. Should be one of our best batches yet.
Also - coming soon to Cousins Vinyl is Johnny Bee Badanjek’s Detroit Motor City Sheeny Shop put together by R.W Peardon, a longtime Detroit music cat who still hangs out and works with all the old Detroit rock n roll guys. Johnny Bee is legendary in Detroit and worldwide, having played with Mitch Ryder, Detroit, the Rockets, and a bunch of other Detroit bands. The greatest rock n roll drummer in Detroit history.
Featured will be Johnny Bee’s music and art and various other things from his private collection. Check him out here http://www.johnny-bee.com/
We’ve also got a CD of some unreleased Detroit stuff that we’re working on getting a review on. Plus more jsREVIEWS coming tomorrow of some good stuff so stay tuned.
The Cousins Vinyl staff just got through playing 2 rounds of disc golf at Cass Benton Park in Northville, Michigan. Highlights of the day were Justin finding a tie-dyed Avenger in the woods, and all participants having a fun time and shooting some birdies. At 8:00 in the morning, they were by far the first ones on the course.
Geoff may have just found his perfect combination of discs for the 45th time. In his bag today was an Innova Champion Viking (go-to driver), a Discraft X-Press (strictly a specialty disc: hyzer-flip downwind), a Discraft Cyclone (mid-range), a Discraft Wasp (get out of trouble disc) and two putters, of which he threw his yellow one better.
The Discraft World Headquarters is actually fairly close by to our World Headquarters (our branch office is down the hallway), in Wixom, Michigan. If I could have any job it would be to come up with sweet descriptions for each disc. According to Discraft, EVERY disc is the most awesome disc ever made, and they all have their little niche, so everyone should really have every single disc in the Discraft line in their bag. Check it out http://www.discraft.com/discgolf.html
Speaking of disc sports, Ultimate is also a very fun sort. Check out the league I play in here www.a2ultimate.org
Any other record collectors out there that double up as disc golf or Ultimate players? Or are we the only ones?
Just came back from Coldwater, Michigan with a 100 or so top notch psych LPs, some real crazy stuff - most we had never seen before. Plus some sweet Detroit stuff and some 45s we need to check out. Got from an old hippie that spends his time fishing and golfing and watching the Tigers. Half his house was filled with records, among assorted other junk. He had some great stories of all the narcotics he used to do while listening to all his crazy records. He was a nice guy - Justin and I had fun looking through his collection and talking to him about the good old days of rock n roll.
Also - Wednesday night we will try to spin live for you some new finds. Most likely funk and funk derived tangents.
Justin and I are going through some of these funk LPs we just got. We’re going to take our time and put some up on the website to listen to. Some real sweet shit! Short list of title: Jimmy Castor, Soul Makossa, Leroy Hutson, Akido, The Ensemble Al-Salaam, Pucho and his Latin Soul Brothers, Tropea, Ice, Eddy Senay, Afro Blues Quintet plus one, East Coast, Orquesta Cimarron, Maceo and All The Kings Men, plus a shit load more. Can say prob. the best funk/soul/jazz collection we’ve ever got. Will spin them for you soon.
The Detroit Tigers beat the White Sox again yesterday, 2-1 to take the series and go up 5 1/2 games in the division. Cousins Vinyl guarentees a World Series victory this year.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060721/SPORTS02/607210418/1048/SPORTS
What a day! Bought a huge jazz/soul/funk LP collection with some amazing titles earlier in the day, and then got a 10,000 piece collection with some unbelievable stuff in it this evening. Among the highlights are a Jem Targel Lucky Guy record, super rare Detroit soul 45s, top notch Beatles and Elvis, obscure Detroit rock records, tons of early Motown 45s and LPs, Bo Diddley LPs, Blue Notes, private pressings, early Rock n Roll, deep funk, all kinds of great stuff. Justin and I were down in this guy’s basement for about four hours looking through it all. And then on Sunday, we’re going to look at another 2,000 LP collection with some more rare Detroit stuff in it. It’s been crazy lately. We’re getting hot so stay tuned for what we put up for auction. We’re also gonna have to blow out some lots just to make room. Josh will be doing some reviews on some pretty sweet stuff so this should be fun.
I just put in about a 15 hour day so I’m ready for bed. Goodnight world!
Well, along with your records (which we need), we need somebody to tell us how to repair our old ass amps and record players. Cleaning contacts, fixing loose wires, doing basic maintenence, all on older equipment.
We also get calls about this all the time from customers, and we’d love to refer ‘em.
Southeastern Michigan folks prefered, since that’s where we are, but let us know all over (since we have customers from all over the world).
Where do you get your record players repaired, folks?
A list from the Guardian on the “most influential” records ever.
I disagree with some, think others are overrated, and think that some are cited for incredibly wrong reasons.
The Metafilter discussion here.
Along with that, I spent some time talking to Ron Cooke about an upcoming Sonic’s Rendezvous Band box set. Cousins’ is tryin’ to get the vinyl reprint rights for the box, and I’m (personally) pulling for clear vinyl. Because it’s awesome, thanks.
Lots of new items listed yesterday, the most exciting being the Rolling Stones first LP, England’s Newest Hit Makers. This particular copy is a white label promotional one, which is pretty hard to find, one of the first ever pressings. With songs like “I’m a King Bee”, “I Just Want To Make Love To You”, “Little By Little” and Chuck Berry’s “Carol”, you can really hear the influence the Blues and R&B had on the Stones in their early days. Ideas that would help form rock and roll as we know it today. A fantastic LP, it reinforces the Stones spot, in my opinion (Justin’s), as the greatest rock band in music history. Here’s your chance to own a white label copy. If I wasn’t trying to run a business, it’d be in my collection right now!
V.I.P
jsREVIEW:
In 1966, for Motown subsidiary V.I.P. records, Chris Clark (one of the few white artists who succeeded under Barry Gordy) released “Love’s Gone Bad,” a Holland-Dozier-Holland joint. It made it to 43 on the R&B charts, 105 on the pop charts, fueled by her hard voice and sparse, bass-heavy production.
That same year, the first white band (not white artist) signed by Gordy, The Underdogs, also took a crack at it. It’s hard to argue that their version is better— it’s one of those Otis Redding/Aretha Franklin “Respect” moments. It goes from being a thumping R&B floor-filler to a badass garage moment, recalling just how rock and roll got going in the first place (and where later bands like The Buzzcocks got their inspiration).
The Underdogs were Grosse Pointe’s premier rock group at the time, and I have to imagine that if they’d ever been heard outside the Detroit area, they’d be on Lenny Kaye’s rolodex. As it stands, this track’s bleak lyrics (”I see a rainbow/turn to black/it’s a sign/ you’re not comin’ back”) and absolutely fantastic backbeat make for a perfect companion to better-known songs like “96 Tears” and “Black Monk Theme.”
