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by Cousin Geoff
I’m rolling out a new feature here on Cousins Vinyl. It’s called “Guess That Sample”.
It’s really a shame that sampling is pretty much outlawed now in hip-hop; it’s killing the genre. Sampling is what the art is based on - not only is it a tribute to the funk and jazz that came before it, but it’s how it was born in the first place. It’s probably why I gravitate towards the old school stuff, yeah - I grew up on it - but I really have no interest in listening to most of today’s rap: some bullshit negative lyrics backed by a generic, synthetic beat made by the same two or three guys that sell ‘em to all the top rappers. It’s garbage - give me the old stuff with heavy samples any day.
A lot of times I’ll be listening to a 70s funk or jazz album and I’ll have one of those - ”hey! that’s the sample off the so and so record!” - moments. Justin and I just drafted a bunch of 70s jazz/funk records off a collection we bought recently. I was listening to this Rasta Afro-funk group called Cymande tonight, their self-titled debut album, and I heard a sample I recognized right away. It’s from their song, Dove.
Listen to it and see if you can guess who sampled it. Then click “read the rest…” below to get the answer and hear the track that it’s featured on.
by Max Conroy
If you refer to my post about the jazz flute, you know that I’m just getting into soul/funk-jazz/fusion. I’m crazy about the stuff. It’s also allowed my formerly tepid interest in hip-hip to expand slightly. It’s like punk rock for me; not the music of course but how I view it. Some of my favorite music, proto-punk, is the music that led directly to the development of punk rock, but I really don’t like straight punk all that much. I love the Dead Boys and the Sex Pistols, but both bands were badass rock and roll acts before they were punk. I love all of this music that’s been sampled a ton or could be sampled if it hasn’t but can take or leave the hip-hop that’s made it famous, so far at least. As my obsession has grown for the (I’ll call it fusion, to incorporate soul/funk-jazz) fusion over the past few weeks, I’ve purchased a shit ton of great records and thank God some of it can be found cheaply.
I’d heard of the Ramsey Lewis Trio, but that was probably from hearing them mentioned by NPR DJs a split second, before I slammed the radio off in disgust before my appreciation of fusion. I totally thought that they were venerated by jazzbos and that they were classic bop, but how wrong I was. Justin hooked me up with a rough copy of the In Crowd, which is apparently an early soul-jazz classic. After digging the album, I also noticed that reissues of it are advertized in Waxpoetics, and have noticed the record at numerous shops and online. I thought that the record would be pricey, but since it obviously sold well for a jazz record and was on Chess’ Argo imprint, it’s insanely cheap. Like you would pay three times what an OG copy would cost to get the reissue. Dig the ‘In’ Crowd…
I also recently picked up Ramsey Lewis’ Sun Goddess for cheap. The cover alone is worth the money, but the music could have been sold in a paper bag and it’d still be sweet. It’s ten years after the In Crowd and the funk had dropped in the meantime, and it’s obvious on this record, that Lewis was hip to it. Check out Sun Goddess, Livin’ For the City (the S. Wonder jam) and Jungle Strut…
On the Blue side of things; some Blue Note records from the periphery of their dark days can be got fairly cheaply too. Some of these records sold very well, which makes them easy to find and cheap, but not bad at all. For instance, Donald Byrd’s Black Byrd (the best selling record in the entire Blue Note catalogue) and Byrd’s Best are about $10 records; the cover of Black Byrd, depicting a black wedding or hoedown of some sort, ca. 1890 is worth it, and the music’s funky as can be, slightly dated, but that’s a large part of the appeal for me. I recently acquired Grant Green’s Alive! album, which is a live gig recorded in a small club with Idris Muhammad tearing the place up on drums, for $10. I’m not as much of a purist as the Cousins and will pick up a reissue or a comp here and there, and found a Grant Green record that was part of the Blue Note Breakbeats series for under $10. Sometimes on these records, as with every record, there are bum tracks, but it seems more common for jazz records to me, so a comp with six of the most notable tracks by someone can be a good thing. But I don’t necessarily think that’s true for Grant Green; I’m willing to bet that anything he did in ‘70 and ‘71 with Idris Muhammad on drums is good throughout. Ronnie Laws‘ Pressure Sensitive must have also sold a shitload because it’s everywhere and it’s cheap. One of my dad’s buddies gave me his record collection when I was about fifteen. There were about fifty or so records, all early 70s stoner rock…and Pressure Sensitive. It’s like the fusion Frampton Comes Alive, but way cooler. Here are Grant Green’s Sookie Sookie (the Don Covay song) and Ronnie Laws’ Nothing to Lose…
by Cousin Geoff
Ann Arbor based rock and rollers Brownsville Station had a breakout hit in 1973, with Smokin’ In The Boys Room, rising as high as #3 on the U.S charts that year. Smokin’ was one of the first teen-angst songs, about pissed off students taking relief by sneaking into the boys room for a smoke. I like the B side even better, though, a great garage cover of Robert Parker’s classic jam Barefootin’, also done well by The Rationals off their album on Crewe.
According to Wikipedia, the bass player, Mike Lutz, works at Oz’s music in Ann Arbor and teaches guitar and bass lessons. That’s awesome! Mike, if you read this, can you tell us a little more about the band? Brownsville Station was led by crazy man Cub Coda, whose wild stage antics were well-respected and studied by many, including Alice Cooper. Can’t you hear School’s Out as the perfect song to play next after Smokin’?
Check out Barefootin’:
And here’s Smokin’ in the Boys Room:
by Max Conroy:
The Go’s latest album Howl On the Haunted Beat You Ride is a fantastic record that doesn’t seem to get much credit, and I live in the land where it was made. Shamefully, until I moved to back to Michigan this past August I’d never heard of them and the way that I heard of them was from a magazine published in the UK, Mojo. Mojo gave the record a four star review and the write up was good; garage, overlooked band, Detroit, etc. There was also a picture of the record’s cover accompanying the review that pretty much guaranteed that I’d look for it. It’s perfectly psychedelic: two huge hipster faces with lifeless hipster expressions, flanking the jacket; the entire band arranged vertically in the center of it, all wearing black or stripes; their far out logo in the upper left; a brown and orange, early mid 60s to early 70s, color motif; all of this on a hazy blanket of stars. I know being interested in a record because of its packaging might be a bit careless, but this record is so cool looking and feeling that I’d be happy to own it even if the music sucked, which it most certainly doesn’t. It’s on Cass records (Cass is a street/area in Detroit for all you non-local readers), which I’ve never heard of, but they totally knocked the ball out of the park on this one. It’s a gatefold with super heavy boards, it feels like it’s a record made in the 50s, and has great graphics pasted inside along with the lyrics.
The Go formed in Detroit in 1998. Jack White was an early member of the band and is featured on their debut Whatcha Doin’, playing lead guitar and singing back up. I had read somewhere that they kicked Jack White out of the band, which would be one to tell the grandchildren: Yeah, I was in a band back in the day…and we kicked Jack White out of the group…We could have been rich! I’m pretty sure that he just left the band because he didn’t want to be a sideman. I have no idea if there is any bad blood as a result of the split, but the Go wasn’t on the White compiled fantastic comp. Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit. There is footage the Go out there playing live during the JW era on an obscure movie called the Detroit Rock Movie, which also has footage of JW jamming Stop Breakin’ Down in his tiny Detroit apartment. If any of you out there have a copy of this movie, I’d be happy to receive one; please respond to this post. Anyway, Whatcha Doin’ was released on Sub Pop and is a great debut record on the noisy side of the garage. They made a follow up for Sub Pop called Free Electricity that was never released because it was allegedly too heavy, which has to be bull shit…too heavy for Sub Pop? I found a copy of it on Soulseek and it’s definitely worth finding. I think there were other reasons Sub Pop shelved it though; one song starts with the lyric, “Big cock angel”. They were ultimately dropped from Sub Pop and put out a more focused rehashing of 60s garage and 70s glam on Lizard King, called The Go. The group then waited four years to put out another record, the brilliant Howl on the Haunted On the Haunted Beat You Ride, which AMG has listed as coming out in April of 2007, but I’m pretty sure it was more like late summer and they still haven’t reviewed it.
Howl On the Haunted Beat You Ride represents the Go fully coming into their own. The music is derivative of 60s psych and 70s glam to be sure, but they certainly make it theirs. The production on this record is simply amazing and it was produced by Bobby Harlow, their front man, in Detroit. The album utilizes clean tones, trippy imagery, and classic CSN-like harmonies with great effect (and I really dislike CSN). The bizarro-poetic title comes from the song Yer Stoned Italian Cowboy, a romp about an irresitible character that “shoots directly from the Id”. Fucking brilliant! In my opinion, there’s only one bum track on this record and that’s the lead off song called You Go Bangin’ On, which was released as a single, so I might be missing something. But don’t listen to the first thirty seconds of this record and file it away. I bought this record seven months ago and the Go haven’t played around here since to my knowledge, until this past Saturday where they played at Gold: a fund raiser for the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
I’m watching the tournament and playing records too. These are some I’ve been listening to:
I took a picture of the B side of Back To Ypsilanti playing on my record player because I wanted to hype it’s arrive coming soon to hear. Van kept bugging me to make him a copy. I made him a copy of Back To Ypsilanti and he kept asking for that B side. Everyday, he’d say, “You got that other joint yet?” I’d say no man, you gotta trade me. He had this studio recording of the Temptations and Marvin Gaye and a few others all singing together, practicing. One of the Temptations sons, who he knows on the Detroit soul and R&B karaoke circuit, gave it to him. Van’s a big soul karaoke guy - he goes over to Detroit from Ypsi about 3-4 times a week to sing or host events. And he sings to his middle school students everyday (he’s a gym teacher). The nights he’s not singing he goes to watch high school basketball games. But anyway, he wouldn’t give it to me. He liked having that recording that nobody else had (or I had). So I never made him a copy of that B side, Tarnished Love Affair. But I will trade him though.
But look Van, don’t you wish you just finished listening like I did? It was good too - I can still hear it - (AND HERE’S A TEASER) so long, so long, so looooooooong…..
This next one is good for relaxing. Like that end of the week relax when you first get home. Jimmy Smith, with Grant Green. A Blue Note classic. And one of the best covers ever made.
Just a walkin’ the dog, if you don’t know how to do it, I’ll show you how to walk the dog. 1963 Stax. Rufus Thomas. I wonder if my wife will let us name our son Rufus? I’m guessing no. As you can see from the cover, ol’ Rufus sure did know how to make white people dance! It must have been easy.
I love bluegrass. And I love local music. That’s why this is one of my favorite records in my collection. The RFD Boys first record on Jessup. I’d compare them to The Seldom Scene. Which is another of my favorites. They do a great version of Country Road. And some good originals. Overall just so good…I’m going to go see them on the 25th - maybe you should too?
After seeing the Holmes Brothers at the Ark a few weeks ago, I dug back into my gospel section. Detroiters The Rance Allen Group is similar to The Holmes Brothers in their ability to blend gospel with uptempo soul and rhythm and blues. This is their second album, on Gospel Truth, a Stax label. They do a song called Just My Salvation that’s set to the music of the Temptations Just My Imagination.
So that’s what I’m on so far tonight. I’m thinking about making a mix CD from my vinyl collection, but I can’t decide if I want to pick a genre or do a multi genre. My genre options I’m considering are: all Michigan bands, bluesgrass, funk, 50s to early 60s R&B, Blues, Funk, Reggae, or even something crazy like Gospel, Bluegrass Gospel, Zydeco/New Orleans, or old school Rap. Of course, my laziness always takes over and I end up just playing them and thinking about making a mix some other day.
In other news, Max Conroy is visiting Cousin Justin this weekend. Max is part of the 586 Gunson Street band from East Lansing that I’ve heard so much about. Apparently there’s a long lost recording still floating around somewhere. I’ll see the both of ‘em tomorrow so I’ll see what I can dig up.
When I’m out looking for records, I often buy it if it has a cool cover, which is the case with The Pathway Quartet’s religious bluegrass LP, Soul Man. I was at an Ypsilanti church yard sale, thumbing through a box under the table when I found it. At first glance, I thought the bluegrass band from Sandusky, Ohio was going to do a cover of Sam and Dave’s famous Memphis Stax song. When I got home, I discovered the soul man they were singing about wasn’t themselves, but Jesus!
But I say: Sam, Dave, Jesus and The Pathway Quartet were all soul men (and women).
and see if you agree!
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.”
A-Square Records
jsREVIEW:
The fashionable take with the Rationals is to point out how Jeep Holland, their manager, rooked ‘em, and how they coulda been contenders. They’re perpetual rock also-rans, lamented more than listened to.
But the Rationals DID make it, at least at the time. Sure, with a little more responsibility on Holland’s part, they coulda been as big as The Standells or the Electric Prunes, but some forty years on, would that have been a huge improvement?
While they predated The Stooges and The MC5, they certainly existed contemporaneously in terms of the scene, if not aesthetic, and Bob Seger’s band learned a thing or two watching them. But frankly, the Rationals were just too good to ever really fit in. Lead singer Scott Morgan had pipes that no other white boy could touch, and had more in common with Van Morrison than with Iggy Pop, which is readily apparent on this early single.
This is the best version of Goffin/King’s “I Need You” ever recorded, hands down, and Morgan belts like a more refined Otis Redding (who was a huge, maybe evven primary influence— it was The Rationals’ cover of “Respect” that led to Aretha Franklin covering it).
The b-side, “Out in the Streets” is a treat too, though it’s more of a go-go goof than timeless classic, but one timeless classic should be enough for any 45. It’s a lyricless r&b bit better suited for interstitials in the Electric Company than repeated listening (though that’s not a knock on it).
Far from one of the lost, forgotten dregs, The Rationals are a touchstone for a generation of Detroit artists and I refuse to treat ‘em any other way. This single shows why.
jsREVIEW:
Before they became the SRC, the Scot Richard Case recorded three songs for the A-Square Records label: “I’m So Glad,” “Who Is That Girl,” and “Get The Picture,” (released as The Old Exciting Scot Richard Case).
This is before they were prog-rocking or guitar heroes, before Capitol scooped ‘em up and made ‘em stars in Europe (they never were too big around here). This is when they were covering Skip James by way of Cream and crooning to girls like they were the 1910 Fruitgum Company.
“I’m So Glad” was a local radio hit, with good reason. It’s got chops to spare and presages the rock monster that SRC would become, even if it’s a little too faithful to really stand up next to the Brits’ take on the blues. But the b-side’s a never heard gem of bubblegum pop. Oompa bass, guitar and keyboards reminscent of “My White Bicycle,” the song’s the psychedelic love story of the chick who may or may not have “turned on” the singer. A perfect snapshot of the days when teen idols started to trip, equal parts innocence and entendre.
