Freeway feat. Jakk Frost & Malik B & Tana Da Beast: Beards R’ Us
From Freedom of Speech mix tape (2012)
This new mixtape is rather fire. Beard Science in full effect.
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There’s a new record store in my neighborhood, Strictly Grooves, and I couldn’t be more excited since it’s the kind of used store that’s right up my alley: strong soul, Latin, jazz, etc. representation. I’ve been picking up a slew of stuff there on just my first two trips, including this Sister Nancy LP. This is the origin of “Bam Bam,” by far, her best known song/single and arguably one of the few dancehall songs that hip-hop fans will know, if any. I wanted to know a little more about how this song got so big and when I posed it to the Soulstrut cloud, I got this back from AKallDay: “i was a teenaged intern at Profile records in 1994 and we had a dancehall division and Bam Bam was on several of the compilations which were heavily pushed at the time, alongside cutty ranks, super cat, shabba ranks etc.” So clearly on a wider radar back in the early 1990s and once folks began sampling it, that only served to increase its radar (but arguably, it was already “out there” even before that). The album features a rather lengthy bio on the back, noting that she was one of fifteen children, including her older brother, DJ Brigadeer [sic] Jerry who she credits as being the inspiration for her own entry into the scene. I was also struck about how the bio highlights her education in Industrial Training: “if she has the opportunity to go to America or England, she will finisher her automobile mechanic training.”1 Perhaps that why the album also includes the highly specific boast: “Only Woman D.J. With Degree.” Big bout yah, Sister. I also included “Roof Over Me Head” because it’s done over one of my favorite riddims: “Gonna Fight” by the Heptones.2
In my latest piece for KCET’s ArtBound, I look at the making of album covers and discuss the manufacturing process and the inherent challenges. Really fun piece to research, hanging out with Thes One and the folks at Dorado Packaging.
Back in 1978, no doubt riding the disco wave, The Paid Attendance put out this single celebrating that season’s team. The Paid Attendance: Be a Believer In Giant Fever In case you want to read the lyrics, here you go. Not exactly the best disco track ever cut – what, no breakdown in the middle? – but I’m more bothered by the lack of pluralization in the title. Shouldn’t it be “Giants fever”? “Giant fever” sounds like a medical condition: “oh it’s bad ma’am, your son seems to have a case of gigans febris. It’s worse than a normal fever, that’s why we call it “giant fever.” BTW: Giants finished third in the NL West that season. Not quite “fever hot.” Right now (as in literally as I post this), they’re up 3-2 on the Reds in a must-win Game 4. Go S.F.!
One can have a legit and spirited debate over whether or not this 7″ is really worth a $1K+ or not. Those kinds of debates are the lifeblood of collecting and I remain largely agnostic on this particular issue. What I can say is that this single is cool as f—. That’s my professional opinion. Start with the label, which looks like a child hand drew it; seriously, for a label so optimistically called “International Hits,” you’d think they could step it up on the design front just to give us the impression that this might actually have gone int’l instead of looking like an art project made while drunk. (Note: this is praising with faint damning). Next, let’s talk about names: Scorpio = win. It’d already be vying for the illest zodiac sign but then the Dennis Coffey association (even if that song may have come out later) just elevates it to a whole new level. And “The Unforgiven” = unqualifiedly bad ass song title (in this case, association with pre-chair-muttering Clint Eastwood doesn’t hurt either). “Theme From ‘Movietown Sound’” is…not that great as far as titles go but still. And, of course, there’s the actual music. Check it off: big rhythm/brass opening riff? Yup. Heavy ride cymbal? Oh yeah. A male singer who sounds like a lady? Yessir. Or, er, ma’am. A bridge – “your warm embrace/are haunting me” – with tense disagreement problems. Even that. From any angle, this whole song screams “raw” in the best ways possible. The flip side isn’t nearly as awesome if only because the arrangement is rather derivative of the A-side and the songwriting is sloppier but hey, the “Stiletto”-like bass hits at the beginning are pretty cool and yes…more ride cymbal for that ass. Not sure how long this reissue/bootleg will remain available but for reals: cop it. Groove Merchant still has a few copies, as of this past weekend. It seems wrong to say I had a “great time” at a memorial but I will say: if the goal of this Sunday’s public memorial for Matthew Africa was to partake in the kind of joyous socializing and good cheer that accompanied his gigs and parties, then it did everything you could want and more. At the end, a second line band lead people through the streets of Oakland, giving Matthew a proper musician’s send-off.
Now, like many, IndianaCornikova had heard that opening bassline came from Tony Avalon’s “Sexy Coffee Pot,” specifically the bridge portion about 2/3rds of the way in. Certainly sounds like the bassline, no? The problem, as the poster noted, is that there are rather major drums underneath that bassline but on the Cypress Hill song, it starts “clean” – no drums. So where did the drums go? If you read the thread, one argument is that Muggs did a low pass filter. Someone else suggested it might have been a replayed bassline by a studio bassist. The latter didn’t seem as plausible to me since 1) I had never heard that studio musicians worked on that album and 2) it was such a sample-heavy album, it seemed less plausible. But as the Soulstrut debate raged on, I figured there was one way to find out. I tracked down Joe “The Butcher” Nicolo, legendary engineer/producer, who worked on the Cypress album. And his reply was simple: “I remember it as a replay.” Until we can get Muggs to weigh in (paging Brian Coleman!), I’ll roll with Joe on this. In essence then, it’s a recreated sample, if that makes sense. But not a sample in the “digitally sampled” sense of the term. And this got me thinking of other “sampled” basslines that weren’t literal samples either. #1 on that list, with a bullet? This was a huge mystery for a minute until Dr. Dre let it out: it wasn’t a sample. It was studio sessioner Colin Wolfe. As far as I know, this wasn’t even “inspired by” a sample; it was just a bassline that Wolfe and/or Dre came up with during the production process. Now, with Main Source’s “Snake Eyes,” the bassline was inspired by a record. Here’s “Snake Eyes.” Here’s the bassline source: Johnnie Taylor’s cover of “Watermelon Man.” However, this wasn’t a strict sample (if you compare the two songs, the Main Source’s is much cleaner than the source material would have easily allowed for). Instead, Large Pro brought in Anton Pukshansky, who worked heavily on Breaking Atoms. Anton also played bass on this song, another one that I assumed was originally a sample, Grand Puba’s debut solo single, “360 (What Goes Around)”. Apparently, not a sample, just Anton’s nimble finger work. (As an aside, I’ve always wondered if he played this bassline – since he does it elsewhere on the album – but apparently, it’s just a really slick chop by T-Ray). Last but not least – and this is slightly a twist on the title theme…the following IS a sample. It just isn’t of an actual bassline. As I helped report on last year, the “Shook Ones II” bassline is actually a pitched down piano melody from Herbie Hancock. Peep: I’m sure there are other examples out there. For example, I still don’t know where this bassline is from. If it were a replay, I’d believe it!
This is a 7″ I’ve had in the back of my crates for a while and I finally pulled it out. On the one hand, I like its funky soul feel but what’s always bothered me is that there’s supposed to be “46 drums” on here and I barely hear one set. Seriously, wtf did the drums go? I feel like this is one of those songs just waiting to get remixed with a better drums. Not only would it play off the title better but the current arrangement is sparse enough where I imagine you can lace drums underneath and have them fit in naturally. Above link is the standard 128 but for the aspiring remixers out there, here’s the track in lossless. Email me your creations and I’ll assemble a follow-up post in future weeks from the best efforts. |
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