SHADES OF SOUL, EP 2.2 COVER ME!

By O-Dub

Shades of Soul EP 2.2: Cover Me! Pt. 1 by Oliver Wang on Mixcloud

You knew this episode was coming at some point. I’m forever stacking cover songs and I finally decided to pull together a few choice bits for this show. I don’t normally do an annotated playlist like this but I realized I had something to say about practically every song I played.

1. Music Makers: United (7″ on Gamble)
I’m assuming it’s the house rhythm band at Gamble re-playing (or playing over?) the instrumental track to The Intruders’ “United.” I haven’t done a side-by-side comparison but the main difference right off the bat is some heavy organ action.

2. Disciples of Soul: Together (7″ on Phantom). Also on Loving on the Flipside
Just a coincidence that I went back to back with Intruders’ covers; I just got in this cover after quietly lusting after it for years. It’s not better than the original but…it’s pretty awesome, especially in sounding a touch more raw, especially with that brass section that sounds borrowed by a high school band (I mean that as a compliment).

3. Sonora Tropical: Lluvi. Also on Diablos del Ritmoa (wrote about this a few weeks back)

4. Mel and Tim: Yes We Can (From Mel and Tim on Stax)
I want to say this is a “surprisingly” good cover of the Pointer Sisters/Allen Toussaint song but I don’t know why that’d be surprising coming from Mel and Tim.

5. Vibratos Ltd.: I’ll Be Back (7″ on Project Spector)
Arizona garage band doing a pretty slick lo-fi cover of the Beatles. I’d guess that a more “professional” engineer would have mixed the drums lower but then this song wouldn’t be as slamming in that case, would it?

6. Les Surfs: Baby I Love You (7″ on Disques Festival)
It’d be tempted to call them the French Jackson 5 except that they were recorded years before the Jackson were releasing anything. So maybe the Jackson 5 were the American Les Surfs. (Ok, maybe not). In any case, a bunch of French kids singing The Ronettes is why I look for covers to begin with.

7. .June Mok: Hang on Sloopy (7″ on Great China)
Apparently cut in Singapore, this features Mok singing several U.S. pop hits in Mandarin. More novelty than anything else but I find so few Chinese records of note, this at least was worth keeping.

8. Serra Band: Saturday In the Park (from The One and Only Serra Band, private)
Bay Area high school band album doing a surprisingly good instrumental cover of Chicago’s mid-70s hit.

9. Ruddy Thomas and DJ Welton Irie: Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground) (12″ on Joe Gibbs). Also on Reggae Discomix Showcase Vol. 4
It’s no Derrick Laro and Trinity but for a dancehall flip on Michael Jackson, no hating this at all.

10. Lloyd Parks: Kung Fu Fighting (7″ on Mart’s)
Cringe? Groove? Cringe? Groove?

11. Wendy Alleyne and the Dynamics: He’s So Fine (7″ on Dobby’s Music Fair)
Wow, they totally ripped off “My Sweet Lord!” 1

12. Country Comfort: Make It With You (from We Are the Children on Trim)
Hawaiian folk/pop band with a couple of albums on a local Hawaiian label, Trim. I have another modern soul-ish tune by them I may post/play at some future point.

13. Signs of the Time: Hurts So Bad (7″ on Pro. Reissued by Numero Group)

For me, the gold standard cover for this song is still Nancy Holloway…but this at least makes it into the consideration, maybe somewhere next to El Chicano. But seriously, no one is fu—ing with Nancy on this one. Don’t try to test.

14-18: Skipped (sorry!)

19. Dusty Springfield: Crumbs off the Table (from Simply…Dusty on Philips).
More here.

20. Don McClain and the Electrifying Cashmeres: Summertime (7″ on Sound Stage)
All I know about these guys is that they’re out of Akron OH and released at least two singles (including a decent flip of “What Does It Take.” But this 7″ doesn’t just do “Summertime”; it’s has a great cover of “You Send Me” on the other side.

21. The Brothers Of Hope: I’m Gonna Make You Love Me (7″ on Gamble)
Started with a single on Gamble, ended with a single on Gamble. Alpha-omega.

  1. This is a joke. Everyone chill. ↩
January 24th, 2014 | Category: covers, radio | Leave a comment

SHARON JONES AND THE DAP-KINGS: ALWAYS GIVING US WHAT WE WANT

By O-Dub

At this point, the story’s been well told. All I’ll add is that like many, I’m very happy to hear that Jones’s cancer is in remission.

Their new album just dropped this week, having been delayed for obvious reasons from last summer. I jawed about it briefly on KPCC on Tuesday and don’t have a ton to add except to say this:

This band is now five albums deep into a career that I doubt many folks would have predicted would have gone this distance. That’s certainly not for any shortcoming in talent on their part, rather it’s the case that their particular style of retro-soul had no useful precedent. Maybe you could imagine one or two albums but back in 2002, when they dropped their debut, it wasn’t like there were examples of similar artists carving out a long-term, successful career. Desco and Soul Fire had both come and gone with what, in hindsight, feels like a ferocious quickness. The Poets of Rhythm were already breaking up after only two albums. Sharon and the Dap-Kings were out there, making the road by walking, as their label mates might say. So to see them, now 14 years and 5 albums later, still doing their thing, kicking it with Ellen and Fallon, with Sharon rocking her bald head like the badmamajama she is? We should all feel so fortunate to enjoy their bounty of music. And we should all count our blessings and send good wishes that albums 6, 7 and 8 are around the corner.

P.S. I have my two LP favorites picked out already: “We Get Along,” which reminds me, ever-so-slightly, of “Follow Your Heart” and “Making Up and Breaking Up” which is as a gorgeous ballad that I’ve ever heard from the group (which is saying a lot).

P.P.S. Valerie June is opening for them on tour this spring. Pencil me in for that show like…yesterday.

January 15th, 2014 | Category: new release, soul/funk | 2 comments

WEEKLY ROUND-UP (1-7-14)

By O-Dub

Pusha

  • Pop Danthology 2013 happened. Cue “man, all pop music sounds exactly the same” complaints.
  • Pharrell hears in colors. Or sees in sound. Or something like that.
  • Listen to my piece on Buhloone Mindstate then read the companion essay.
  • Supposedly “everyone” is going back to vinyl if by “everyone” you mean 2% of music buyers which sounds more like “some” than “every” but what do I know?
    • January 7th, 2014 | Category: weekly roundup | 2 comments

    SHADES OF SOUL, EP 2.1: OLD ACQUAINTANCES

    By O-Dub

    R 410122 1264444342

    For my first Shades of Soul show of 2014 (radiosombra.org), I went into the library and looked at a few shelves of records where I had pulled things out specifically to “use” them at some undetermined future point. Most of these were loose mixtape ideas that I never got around to and while I might yet revisit them for that purpose, it seemed like a good time to blow the dust off and give ‘em a spin. There’s a lot “breakbeat-heavy rock” in here plus a few random goodies towards the end, including one recent acquisition (the delicious “Crusing Heavy” by Shelia Crute).

    Peep the show above, peep the playlist here.

    January 6th, 2014 | Category: radio | Leave a comment

    MINI-MIXERS

    By O-Dub

    Hand tall 335

    Anonymous asks:

    Mini-mixers: I know you were curious about this yourself a while back and considered the irig since the Columbia GMX is almost impossible to find.What’s the verdict? What do you use?

    I bought the iRig but I haven’t actually used it “in the field.” I can talk about my logic in choosing it but first this: I didn’t really “need” a portable mixer. The only reason I bothered was because I have a pair of Columbia GP-3s and aesthetically, I wanted a small mixer to use with them rather than lugging out something like one of the classic slim Vestax mixers (let alone my Rane).

    Obviously, if it were all about aesthetics, the GMX-3 would make the most sense. However, besides the fact that – as you point out – they’re very very hard to come by, from what I’ve seen…it doesn’t have a cue function. I could be wrong about that but assuming I’m correct, that makes it substantially less useful as an actual mixer. Obviously, if I came across a GMX-3 at a swap meet, I would snap it up but in terms of a functional mixer, the iRig seemed like a good call for something very small, portable but with decent features. Obviously, it’s not going to replace a more serious mixer but for use with a pair of portables, it makes solid sense (at least on paper).

    Anyways, since we opened this topic, while I’m quite happy with the GP-3 (it’s as solid a portable as you can ask for), if I were so inclined to go with a different set…why not double up on the Big Birds? Or, if you really want to catch some eyes, the Philips “UFO” players. (For the record: the Phillips is gorgeous but not terribly practical as a portable).

    Have a question? Ask us.

    January 1st, 2014 | Category: ask us, record players turntables phonographs | Leave a comment
     
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