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By Cousin Geoff
Aaron Timlin, executive director of CAID, is planning a 192 hour dance-in to protest the unnecessary force Detroit Police used to break up a recent after-hours funk dance party. John Sinclair would be proud.
A dance protest seems like no big deal, except that the Detroit Police told them that they needed a permit to dance, and this was one of the things they got ticketed for. Timlin was quoted in the above mention freep article saying, “We’re standing up for what we believe in. We’d prefer that the police come dance with us.” Translation: screw you and your laws, we’re dancing, come and stop us. Totally a page from Sinclair, who once stated that authority figures have no right infringing on the people’s consciousness.
This has gotten a huge amount of attention, with the freep spinning it in favor of Timlin and those who were ticketed at the party. The comments section on both articles in the freep have a ton of responses, with people taking both sides. My initial reaction was that this was totally uncalled for, but now I am starting to see it from the DPD’s perspective. If the police gave the art establishment a fair warning in advance, and they still broke the law, they had every right to crack down - just maybe not with so much force and intensity.
But let’s break this down a bit further. Had this been a mostly black party or a gay club illegally serving alcohol after hours, would there have been this much fuss made? Or did the police treat these white suburbanite hipsters like they would anyone else?
I am very interested in seeing how the police respond to this act of civil disobedience. Do they let ’em dance, or will they show these hipsters who runs things in Detroit?
Maybe Timlin should hand this 45 to the DJ and see where it takes everything:
A very Large group of over 200 rare promo 45s, again from 1970. This is a continuation of the collection of radio promo 45s that end today. Some of the highlights of this auction are another copy of Jupiters’ Children, Gracious!, Maypole, Avatar, Iota, Mike Wallace, The Flame, Broken Arrow, Rod Evans, Novelty, Freada Wallace, Loose, Danny & The Mexicans, Pastor Brothers, Jimmy Chapel, Sean McLeod, and Kiss Inc. There are also a couple more soul 45s missed last week including Chic Walker. This batch has some real rare stuff that is on the side of unknown, so as always please ask to hear some sound clips ad I will get them up.
by Cousin Geoff
I wrote about this album about two years ago, but I didn’t include a picture or audio. I forgot I wrote about it when I was thinking about what to post tonight, but I took the picture and recorded a sample of Gone With Yesterday. Rather than write about it again, you can just read what I wrote before and listen to the cut.
Let me start by saying these things:
1) All Music Guide gave this album 2 out of 5 stars, but didn’t describe it in a review.
2) It sells on ebay for about $15-20, pretty decent but something of this genre could go a bit higher - closer to $40-50.
3) AudiophileUSA.com says this: “Beautiful 1972 Gatefold sleeve . A Hard To Find LP With An Excellent Blending Of Heavy African Rhythms And San Francisco Psych With A Good Measure Of Fuzz Lead Guitar.”
4) I like both African and funk music, so an unheard Afro-funk early 70s LP sounded pretty sweet to me. So instead of selling it, I snatched it up, something Justin and I do as part of our “compensation” for owning Cousins and doing the job.
When I first listened to this album, I started out on side 2 by chance. And this is why I didn’t get past much of the rest of the album. The first song on side 2, titled Gone With Yesterday, is frickin’ awesome. A definite future mix-tape centerpiece, a song blended of afro-beat, reggae, folk, and 70s soul. Has a haunting guitar in the background which sounds Indian or Egyptian that just keeps improvising and then cuts to a solo after the first vocal verse. And then keeps going until you’re totally feelin’ it. The music is strangely happy and positive although the vocals say,
“Yesterday, you gave me happiness, happiness, that’s all I need, to get me happy, but Today, my happiness is gone, with yesterday, with yesterday, ohhh everything, with yesterday.”
And then the next song continues this mood theme and goes off into a terrific all instrumental afro-funk jazzy jam (Hippies, you’d like this).
And the rest of side two is just kick-ass. I can’t go wrong if I’m deciding what to throw on and I choose this side. I can listen to a fantastic single and then jam the rest of the way through the record, djembes and everything. Psychedelic Afro-funk! Which is so good and I go to flip the record, but, strangely, side 1 is disappointing.
Unlike side 2, it’s more subdued, less exciting, and the first song completely stops the pulse of the record so far (if listened to from side 2 first). It’s like an introduction to who they are, with a lame slow drum intro and then some music to kind of show us what we’re about to hear. And then the songs sound choppy and mixed up. They can’t decide if they want to make more songs like, Yesterday, or jam out like they do so well. The first two songs with vocals suck, and then they start jamming for a song, which sounds sweet. And then the next song goes to a half jam/half Yesterday, which sucks again. And the last song of side 1 is a chant, and kinda sucks too.
So I think if this album was contructed better and the actual concept was re-evaluated the album would be a classic in 70s Afro-funk. As it stands, side 2 is so good that the album is definitely still worth checking out.
Listen to Gone With Yesterday:
Justin has just posted a smallish but nice collection of what I dub the Happy Hippie LP Batch. Condition looks to be excellent on them. Mention “Happy Hippie” to Justin and get a discount on shipping.
