Monday, June 16, 2008

Began Cekic


Began Cekic had two prominent disco projects, Brooklyn Express and Common Sense, both of which excelled at cover songs. Common Sense are best remembered for their version of The Police's "Voices Inside My Head", which can be found on the first "Disco Not Disco" compilation. While Brooklyn Express' "Sixty-Nine" and "Change Position" are clearly based on Jimmy Bo Horne's "Spank", I'm not sure if "Back In Time" is a cover or an original. With the above covers though, I prefer Began's versions over the originals.

While Googling Mr. Cekic, I came across the following interview on a Geocities page:

Daniel Wang: "Who was Began Cekic? And what was the deal with those grungy little One Way Records that you mixed? He made that version of Love Is the Message where he seems to be playing the keyboards himself...."

Tee Scott:" Began Cekic was a real case. He was a Yugoslavian guy with this little record company - One Way was a subsidiary of his main label, B.C. Recards, which he eventually changed to One Way. He was the king of the copiers. He got a hold of me, and he treated me to all kinds of baubles (laughter); he bought me two huge 1500's, or 1520 tapedecks, the model they used in the studio with a "Store" feature and the extra sections for your tone generators, which were built-in; it cost about $4000. And then he bought me the 1506, which was a 4-track recorder. These were all gifts for doing those records for him."

Daniel Wang:So he was the original bootlegger, so to say? Did he make money?

Tee Scott:"He made a lot of money on those! He did Love Is the Message, Sixty-Nine (Spank), Eighty-Eight, Beyond the Clouds, Relight My Fire (Let's Get Horny), Computer Games, all of those... He took me to Florida, too. Of course he did cover records, really because he didn't sample anybody else's records - it wasn`t possible then,-- he just did things that sounded close to them. And after a while, he started getting involved in stuff that I felt I should back out of. He started getting really ridiculous and stepping over the line with a lot of stuff. I lost touch with him after a while."


Brooklyn Express - Sixty-Nine
Mediafire | YSI won't upload the file, probably because they think it's porn | 320 kbps

Brooklyn Express - Change Position (88)
Mediafire | YSI | 320 kbps

Brooklyn Express - Back In Time
Mediafire | YSI | 192 kbps

Bonus:

Common Sense - Voices Inside My Head
Mediafire | YSI | 320 kbps

6 comments:

Billy said...

Great post.

Gentlewhoadie Apt One said...

word.

i hate that dude's version of Love Is the Message though. it has some really shitty scratching in it if memory serves

Billy said...

yes, LITM definitely has out of place scratches.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, the Back in Time jam is definitely ripped off from Paul Lewis "Girl you need a change of mind", it's a bit slower and more spaced out, and it's actually not bad at all. The electro-style handclaps are a nice touch too!

dario.zg said...

"Computer Wars" is a legendary track! Still love it!

Anonymous said...

began "benny" cekic is my uncle.he use to pay me to put his vynal records into the sleeves when i was a kid.at that time uncle benny was a big hit with records like funky town and big apple noise.benny's still around but doing demolition as a buisness and doing it well.flash back of a genius indeed.peace!!!!!!!!

brooklynyte4ever.