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One of the upsides to the Rap Purge – abetted by some timely listings – is that I’ve been knocking down some long-time white whale records. If you recall from our previous convo around this, a White Whale™ is a record that has tormented you with its elusiveness.
It’s not enough for a record to merely be high on your want list. A record can only cross into White Whale-ness once it’s eluded you enough times to make you want to curse the day you learned about it (but you can’t let [...]
Continue reading HUNTING DOWN WHITE WHALES
Alec Palao is a music historian and reissue producer and quite possibly, the world’s leading expert on the Music City catalog.
The label was one of the most storied in Bay Area music history though you’d be forgiven if you’ve never heard of it given that it was always more of a local, independent operation than anything approaching the size/scope of Fantasy or similar Bay Area imprints. Nonetheless, for three decades, Music City was one of the outlets for Black music in the Bay, through many different evolutions of style. Until recently, [...]
Continue reading THE SIDEBAR #16: ALEC PALAO, TALKING ABOUT MUSIC CITY
Billy Preston: John Henry
Without a Song
God Is Great
From I Wrote a Simple Song (A&M, 1971)
Billy Preston is one of those soul men who I’m constantly rediscovering (and damn happy when I do). I guess I don’t associate him on the same level as a Donny Hathaway or a Curtis Mayfield yet I’d be hard-pressed to ever remember being disappointed by his output and certainly, Preston’s career – especially his connection to the Beatles – is simply remarkable. I’m still bugging out at the idea that he [...]
Continue reading BILLY PRESTON: PUTTING A JOHN HENRY ON YOUR HEART
Over the summer, I participated in the NEH/Vectors Summer Institute in the digital humanities and if you noticed why my post productivity took a dive…well, that’s partly why. The main fruits of that labor will reveal themselves later this fall (it’s related to my research on Filipino American mobile DJ crews) but one of the things I can share in the meanwhile is a very cool bit of media/authoring software called Scalar which, among other things, allows you to annotate media files such as video and sound clips.
What I mean by this is [...]
Continue reading CYPRESS HILL: DECONSTRUCTED
Ten years ago, when I first began to get to know folks in my generation of record collectors, we were all mostly in our 20s. One of the nicest, classiest dudes in the game was Aaron Anderson, a DJ/collector out in Detroit. For many years, Aaron had been dealing with a rare form of brain cancer that for a long, blessed while, had gone into remission. However, earlier this year, it returned in an inoperable form and I am extremely saddened to report that Aaron passed away last night.
I didn’t know [...]
Continue reading RIP TO AARON ANDERSON
RhythmX feat. Grump and Simba: Subliminal Criminals
From Long Overdue (SMG/Sick Wid It, 1992)
I was originally going to save this for the next “Rap Purge” installment but I thought it was worth just dedicating a solo post to.
I got this RhythmX LP back in the day though I can’t even remember under what situation (i.e. did I buy it at the store? Get it in a record pool? Had it sent to me for review?) but what did strike me at the time was, “oh, this dude is Japanese [...]
Continue reading RHYTHMX AND GRUMP: RAP INNOVASIANS
I do truly feel bad that my output has slowed in recent weeks – between my day job, doing post-production on Sidebar episodes, the rap purge, and other time sucks, I simply haven’t found much time to do, you know, normal posts.
I want to knock out a slew while I have the energy, especially those highlighting recent releases that may be of interest to y’all. Here’s today’s:
The Martinis: Bullseye
The Pac-Keys: Greasy Pumpkin
Both on Late Late Party (Light in the Attic, 2011)
This new Charles “Packy” Axton comp was a real [...]
Continue reading CHARLES ‘PACKY’ AXTON: MEMPHIS UNDERGROUNDER
Thes One came through to the crib a few weeks back…and the height of the heat wave, so we ended up chatting in the kitchen rather than the record room which he helped build. This podcast had been planned a while but with Thes and Double K busy at work at Highlighter, their upcoming (8th!) studio album, we pushed it back a few months.
The original idea behind our convo was to discuss Thes’s upcoming 10 Years of Thes One anthology, which reflects on his long production history, both in and outside the group. That formed the [...]
Continue reading THE SIDEBAR #15: THES ONE OF PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS
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