Bubbha Thomas & The Lightment Pop-up Shop: Rappcats, 5636 York Blvd, Los Angeles
Saturday, February 24, Noon-6PM
Now-Again Records is celebrating the reissue of The Lightmen’s Spiritual Jazz classic Fancy Pants with a pop-up record shop at Rappcats. The sale will be hosted by Egon, with records sourced from Bubbha Thomas and his Lightmen bandmates – saxophonist Doug Harris and bassist Don Patterson’s collections – and will contain both one-of-a-kind rarities and classic soul, funk, jazz and rock LPs and 45s that inspired Thomas and his bandmates. And of course albums by the Lightmen band itself. Don Patterson himself will be at the space, talking jazz and signing any copies of the albums purchased from the collections.
Also available on site will be the Lightmen’s Fancy Pants and Free As You Wanna Be reissues, and the entire Now-Again catalog, on sale for 25% less than our normal retail prices. If you can’t make it to Highland Park, Los Angeles, all online Now-Again orders from the Rappcats store placed on February 24th will receive a 25% discount as well.
Revolutionary, spiritual jazz from Houston, reissued for the first time – the second in a series of four expanded reissues of drummer and bandleader Bubbha Thomas’s lauded catalog.
Extensive booklet detailing Bubbha and his band’s story, replete with never-published photos. Presented in both the issued stereo and previously unissued mono mixes as a double LP. Download card for WAV files and videos of 1970s performances included.
Drummer, bandleader and activist Bubbha Thomas had toured America with R&B revues, served as a session musician for Peacock and Back Beat Records, and played straight ahead jazz with legends before the political and social upheaval of the late 1960s led him to a path first charted by Coltrane. Fancy Pants is his second LP with his Lightmen band and, like the deep-set, maverick jazz issued by the likes of Tribe and Strata East, is amongst the best of the 1970s jazz underground, a collective voice of resistance to the musical and cultural status quo.
This is the first time that Fancy Pants has seen reissue, and it is presented in both the issued stereo and previously unissued mono mixes as a double LP. This reissue was remastered from Bubbha’s original master tapes. Bubbha and his band’s story is told in great detail by Houston music and cultural historian Lance Scott Walker (Houston Rap / Houston Rap Tapes) and Now-Again’s Eothen Alapatt, in a booklet that contains dozens of unpublished photographs. Download card for WAV files and videos of numerous 1970s performances also included.
All four of Bubbha’s 1970s albums will see reissue as expanded albums, with previously unreleased mixes, alternate and unreleased versions, once per quarter, through the end of 2018. Watch a primer of what’s to come below.
Ayalew Mesfin is among the legends of the 1970s Ethiopian musical scene – his music is some of the funkiest to arise from this unconquerable East African nation. Ayalew was forced underground by the Derg regime that took control of the country in 1974. Now, over 40 years later, his triumphant return – and the first time that his music has been presented in album form – gives us a chance to discover a rare & beautiful moment in music history. Listen to his classic Ethiopian funk track “Libe Menta Hone” below.
Read more about this important release here. And watch a short film that introduces you to Ayalew’s story and his music:
The latest release in Now-Again’s Reserve Subscription series is Zamrock musician Mike Nyoni and Born Free’s – My Own Thing: some of the funkiest music issued on the African continent in the 1970s. Bonus 2nd LP contains the groovy genesis of the Kalindula music Nyoni would master in the 80s… available only to subscribers. Shipping April 18th 2018.
In late 2017, Egon visited Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Studios in London with Ed Wilson, record fiend and chef / owner of stellar restaurant – and frequent Madlib Medicine Show London tour stop – Brawn to chat about wine and music – and record some mixes together. Now the show – World Wine! – is available to listen to at the above link. Curious as to what your’e hearing? Check the tracklist below. (more…)
