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By O-Dub 
This morning, Will Holland, aka Quantic, dropped by the studio and I couldn’t be more pleased since I’ve been a massive fan of his work for years and though we’ve corresponded via interweb and have some mutual friends, this is the first time I’ve met him in person.
Quantic has had a remarkably prolific and diverse career over the last decade, all now captured in the new 32-song double-CD anthology, Best of Quantic. With that in mind, I asked Will about his history as a producer, beginning in his early years, recording sample-based [...]
Continue reading THE SIDEBAR 18: QUANTIC
By O-Dub 
Earlier in the year, a documentarian named Mathew Ramirez Warren contacted me about a possible interview. Mathew is putting together a full-length film on the history of Latin boogaloo – We Like It Like That – and obviously, this is a topic near and dear to me. Before he came out to interview me, he sent me a few clips of what he had already shot.
I was floored.
The story of Latin boogaloo, in my opinion, has been remarkably ignored. There are any number of theories to explain that relative absence (we don’t have [...]
Continue reading WE LIKE IT LIKE THAT: SUPPORT THIS BOOGALOO DOCUMENTARY
By O-Dub 
Sad news I just learned about; Jerry Ragovoy has passed away at age 80. I wrote about Ragovoy in 2009, after the release of an anthology of his best-known collaborations; please do check that out since it has more on his background and other songs.
I alluded to this in that post but Ragovoy was an incredibly prolific force in R&B who didn’t always get the recognition he deserved. I was amazed at how many incredible songs he touched, including a few of my all-time favorite soul songs by the likes of [...]
Continue reading JERRY RAGOVOY: RIP
By O-Dub 
Even if you’ve never seen Brian Cross aka B+ in person, you’ve definitely seen his photography. Starting in the early 1990s, B+ has become one of the premier music photographers of the past 20 years, especially (but hardly exclusively) in the hip-hop community.
B+ is also one-half of the L.A.-based production outfit, Mochilla, who’ve put out the renown Keepintime, Brasilintime and Timeless series. And, he’s author of one of the best books ever written about hip-hop in L.A., It’s Not About a Salary.1 Suffice to say, of all the folks I’ve met through [...]
Continue reading SIDEBAR #12: PHOTOGRAPHER BRIAN CROSS/B+
By O-Dub 
I met Charlie Bethel aka Chuck Wild aka Captain Planet through his brother Wil (aka DJ Murphy’s Law), my old DJing partner at the Short Stop. At the time, Chuck was living out in Brooklyn, but last fall, he picked up and moved West, landing out here in L.A.
As Captain Planet, he’s been responsible for three Afro-Latin flavored EPs on Bastard Jazz thus far: Gumbo Funk (2005), Speakin’ Nuyorican (2009) and the just-released Ningané. He’s also at work on his first full-length, Cookin’ Gumbo, due out later this fall, also on Bastard Jazz.
Chuck also [...]
Continue reading SIDEBAR #10: DJ CAPTAIN PLANET
By O-Dub 
I’ve seen Joe perform quite a few times now but I’m still jealous of my Bay Area folks who may get to see him at Yoshi’s next weekend. Joe tends to come through L.A. with some frequency but his Bay Area trips are fewer and far between.1
At least this time around, Joe is doing things up proper, with several appearances. On Thursday, he’ll be at the Bayanihan Community Center (free!) and one night later, he’ll be at the Milk Bar. If you don’t catch him this time around; you have no excuse!
As it were, I [...]
Continue reading JOE BATAAN: BACK IN S.F. NEXT WEEKEND
By O-Dub 
I wrote a piece for the LA TImes the other week about cumbia peruana and its use of surf guitar. Fun piece to research and write (big ups to Barney Hoskyns’s Waiting For the Sun), especially given my interest in 1) cumbia styles and 2) L.A. music.
Coincidentally, the day my piece came out, I was in NOLA and turned up a single by The Tornadoes, a pioneering surf band out of Redlands, CA. Their best known hit was probably “Bustin’ Surfboards” though this single was released under the name “The [...]
Continue reading THE TORNADOES + SEPTIMA REGION: THE LONG SURF
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