This is a private stock edit I have been playing for years. The dudes from SF/LA/NYC crew MOM DJs convinced me to put it on their MOM Remixes Vol. 3, and some of the companion edits I have made will soon follow. The Motown on Mondays dudes always put it down solid, so check them out at their events around the country.
Periodically I'll have a genre-specific record ripping binge. I have a non-dance oriented residency every Sunday at North Bowl in Philly, and I've been finding the urge to play a lot of soul and R&B. Unfortunately, most of my soul collection is sitting in shoeboxes. So last week I took out a stack of 45s and went to work.
Right there at the beginning of Box Number One was a solid grip of Phil-L.A. of Soul singles. All in all it's a good imprint, featuring early work from one of my favorites, Little Beaver and also a number of releases by later Philly movers and shakers such as Harold Melvin, The Peoples Choice and curiously named outfit The Philly Sound.
Cliff Nobles and Co.'s The Horse (1968) and The Fantastic Johnny C's Boogaloo Down Broadway (1967) were the two chart singles that jumped off the label, which was super prolific in the late 60s. A decent percentage of the subsequent Phil-L.A. Of Soul discography is either songs riffing on The Horse or Broadway (Hitch it to the Horse, Cool Broadway etc). Not surprisingly, these cuts are also the title singles from the label's two LPs. (Many people also know The Horse as the single from the Booker T and the MGs cover album with the bangin metallic silver cover art.)
Phil-L.A. of Soul eventually put out a few Miami-based artists and then disappeared after the late 70s.
Anyways, if you've ever had a dusty finger for 45s, these two should be quite familiar.
My apologies for these records sounding dusty and hissy and burnt as hell but hey, they're records that used to live in somebody's basement that now live in a shoebox at my house.
Cliff Nobles and Co. - The Horse Zshare | YSI | 320 kbps
The Fantastic Johnny C - Boogaloo Down Broadway Zshare | YSI | 320 kbps
Here's some rock for a change. I picked this up a few weeks ago from a junk store near the Italian Market for a quarter. I mean, with a name like Crazy Elephant, who wouldn't?
Sweet Jane's opening night was beautiful, with excellent vintage and vinyl scores to be had by all. Being of the vinyl persuasion, I was delighted to finally find a copy of Gloria Jones' Tainted Love. I'm especially thrilled that it's a 12" with a longer version of the song. This is a big score for me, so be sure to enjoy this one everybody...
Gloria Jones - Tainted Love (12" Mix) Gloria Jones - Tainted Love (Instrumental)
Despite being six years away from landing on the moon, this 1963 song not only presupposes the possibility of interplanetary travel, but also that Martian culture was nearly identical to that of pre-Beatles America (i.e. bobby socks, poodle skirts, and high school hops). Talk about visionary! Well, the story doesn't end there. The band that concocted this extraterrestrial jam was also a pioneer of electronic music.
Ten years before Bob Moog invented the voltage controlled synthesizer, The Ran-Dells were manipulating sine waves and splicing tape by hand. Note the sci-fi B-movie blast-off effect at the beginning. Then take in the Doo-wop chorus. If not for the so-called "novelty" content of this song (Don't count me among the naysayers. I watched the X-Files. I want to believe! ) this song might be remembered alongside other vocal group classics. After all, Martian Hop did earn a gold record.
I'm no DJ, like some of the other good folks posting on this blog, but I do know a slammin' beat when I hear one. It may not surprise you that the band behind this monstrosity is German, but you will be surprised to know that it's from 1968... at least until the sitars come in. But hey, who cares if a little patchouli wafts onto the dance floor?
Little info--let alone an LP still in print--exists about Motherhood. But thanks to the compilation Kraut! Demons! Kraut! we can still enjoy their literally groundbreaking (blast the base if you want to know what I mean) psychedelic rock.
With my inaugural post on Dollar Bin Jams I wanted to kick things off right, in the true spirit of For-Nerds-By-Nerds that this blog was founded upon. That being said, what could be more nerd-core than Krautrock, the Dungeons & Dragons of music?
And I'll start by cheating a bit. This first band, Magical Ring, isn't German at all; they're French, which I suppose makes them the direct opposite of German. Still, this track from their 1977 release Light Flight/More and More is a creeping psychedelic guitar workout that definitely wears a Krautrock influence on its sleeve. Plus, I thought it would sound great as a kind of overture to the rest of this post.
There's next to nothing about Magical Ring on the interweb, but I did find a copy of the record on sale for $266, so grab this like Paris in 1940.
One of the most mythical bands off all time, Faust is nonetheless distinguished for being one of the first signed to rebel billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Records. Between their breakup in 1975 and their reunion in 1990 the whereabouts of the group remain unknown. "It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl" is the lead track off their sophomore release, So Far, and sounds something like a deconstructed '70s pop song, albeit a little more repetitive.
Cluster was probably the most innovative group in German space rock, also known as kosmische, and featured guest artists from Neu!'s Michael Rother to Brian Eno. 1974's Zuckerzeit was a departure, in that it came down from outer space in favor of a sound approaching electronic pop, which narrowly predated Kraftwerk's Autobahn.
This would be in the opening credits to Werner Herzog's adaptation of Pulp Fiction.
Back into the cosmos. I don't know what else to say about this except "freaking epic." And eerie, good Halloween mood music if that's your thing. My girlfriend loves Tangerine Dream but doesn't much care for electronic dance music. Figure that one out. This is a 320kbps CD rip, and it's almost 18 minutes long, so serious nerds only.
In the 1980s, Harald Grosskopf was the drummer for Ash Ra Tempel, the other big kosmische band and the primary vehicle for Manuel Göttsching (whose landmark E2-E4 I would absolutely love to post in its righteous entirety, pending a discussion with my colleagues on possible legal ramifications). Grosskopf also pursued a decent solo career in his own right, expanding on Ash Ra's flirtation with New Age; here's a less cheesy example from his 1980 LP, Synthesist. For Echoes, I'm John Diliberto.
Harmonia was a veritable Krautrock supergroup, comprised of key players in the scene, and was arguably an ideal representation of its signature motorik chug. Brian Eno called them "the world's most important rock group" and would later collaborate in several sessions. Although Kraftwerk would ultimately become the most widely influential band of that era, Harmonia is often considered the flagship Krautrock band, a perfect encapsulation of its time and place. This track is off their 1974 debut, Musik von Harmonia.
We've come full circle here because I'm cheating again. Davey Jones isn't German, but he moved to Berlin in the late 1970s to produce a trilogy of groundbreaking, Krautfluenced albums with help from, you guessed it, fellow ex-pat Brian Eno. Heroes was the middle child of the three, released 30 years ago this month in fact (see, I knew what I was doing). The title track is still my all-time favorite Bowie song. Amazing guitar solo from Robert Fripp, great use of oscillators, but Bowie's vocal is unreal. The lyric about a couple embracing against the backdrop of the Berlin Wall, defying that symbol of overwhelming oppression with such a visceral display of emotion, chokes me up every time. Critic Ned Raggett put it best: "Not even ending up as a Microsoft commercial theme could quench the sheer power and beauty of 'Heroes.'"
The birth of a new institution! Dollar Bin Jams that is. This seems like an appropriately geeky way to kick off our site. An early example of using the studio as an instrument. If you're into torment and bloodshed, read the story of The Tornadoes at All Music Guide.
Despite being six years away from landing on the moon, this 1963 song not only presupposes the possibility of interplanetary travel, but also that Martian culture was nearly identical to that of pre-Beatles America (i.e. bobby socks, poodle skirts, and high school hops). Talk about visionary! Well, the story doesn't end there. The band that concocted this extraterrestrial jam was also a pioneer of electronic music.
I'm no DJ, like some of the other good folks posting on this blog, but I do know a slammin' beat when I hear one. It may not surprise you that the band behind this monstrosity is German, but you will be surprised to know that it's from 1968... at least until the sitars come in. But hey, who cares if a little patchouli wafts onto the dance floor?
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