New Day Rising

You hear working DJs say it every year: New Year's Eve is for amateurs. Too often it's that night of the year that makes gigging feel like just another job in the service industry. I used to have a regular NYE thing I'd do every year 'till I just couldn't take it anymore and pretty much stopped DJ-ing or even leaving the house on December 31st. Most lasting memory of my former NYE gig: putting on "Hypnotize," turning to get the next song out of the crate, turning back around to the turntables and seeing champagne spilt all over the still spinning record, the perpetrators long gone. (Remarkably, it kept on playing fine; I guess Puffy was right - can't nothing hold him down.)

I'm pretty optimistic about this year, tho. There's actually a high probability of having fun. First of all there's safety in numbers. Monk, G-Man, and myself will all be over at the usual spot. And our special headlining guest is the legendary Original DJ Jazzy Jay. Jay's the man. He was Bam's first lieutenant on the mix, and hand built speakers for Zulu Nation. He held down the Roxy, Negril, Danceteria, and KISS FM. He did "It's Yours." He recorded and mixed Divine Force's "Holy War." He mentored Diamond D and most of D.I.T.C. He's got his own personalized edition of the Rane 57 with his logo on it and everything. And he's still super nice on the slice, as anyone who's caught him up at the park jams over last several summers well knows. 

One of Jazzy's sets from St. Nicholas a few summers back still stands out in my mind as one of those perfect summations of why dudes like him are the original masters of their craft. Late summer afternoon around dusk, only maybe 25 people sitting on the grass on a hill just hanging out listening to him effortlessly go from Candido to C.J. & Co. to Cloud One, leaning on the Echoplex just enough to give it all this dream-like quality. Then, boom - he drops "When Doves Cry" and he's out. It was a thing of beauty. Lasted a total of maybe half hour, 40 minutes tops, but everybody there that day felt like life was quantifiably better afterwards.
I don't know if transcendent moments that sort of sneak up on you like that can realistically happen on NYE. But I'm looking forward to finding out. Speaking of finding sh*t out, the other day Monk fwd-ed me the link to this youtube clip of Jazzy and Bam giving a scratch tutorial on TV BITD. Check out Ad Rock from the Beastie Boys in the audience during the Q&A portion at the end. Priceless.

This vid is great too: Jazzy again explaining the fundamentals of cutting. (Gotta love the part where he sneaks his arm around the show's female host real smooth.) This clip also features fellow BX legend Whiz Kid.

And if you don't know, now ya know. See you Thursday, suckaz!

Radio Radio

So Xmas arrives a few days early this year. How so, you ask? Because this week I've got not just one, but two, wonderful radio shows on-line to tantalize your tune-seeking ears. 

Of course, neither of these programs is holiday themed. Over at RBMA we've got the latest edition of "Across 135th Street." Something else this particular show isn't: a year-end round up show. You scream, I'm lazy. Yeah, you're right. I didn't have time nor felt suitably inspired to go through everything I listened to in '09 (or maybe more accurately try to catch up on stuff I put off listening to through most of the year), and then build a show around it. (New Year's Resolution #467: do a better job keeping up with current releases.) But I did wanna give some shine to at least a few of the things I've been enjoying over the past months, so it's a mixed bag: semi-current quality underground-ish rap (several songs from the High Water Music catalog - Sucio, hang on in there!), three of my favorite Stark Reality cuts (in honor of Mr. Monty Stark), some b-boy-friendly things I've been playing out, a couple of dance tracks and disco edits etc. Playlist as follows:

Stark Reality - Say Brother 

Stark Reality - Roller Coaster Ride

Stark Reality - Comrades

RJD2 ft. Kenna - Games You Can Win

Shafiq Husayn ft. Fatima - Lil' Girl

Lushlife - Innocence/Daylight Into Me

DJ Spinna ft. Krym of Jigmastas - New York

DJ Spinna ft. eLZhi - More Colors

Fresh Daily - Break a Leg

Fashawn ft. Exile - Bo Jackson

Large Professor - Amaman

Diamond District - Streets Won't Let Me Chill

Diamond District - I Mean Business

Paten Locke - Good Muse

Daniel Joseph - And I

Freeway & Jake One - Y'all Don't Want It

Freeway & Jake One - Weather Man

Spaghetti Head - Big Noise From Winnetka

Cocody's Men - Shako

Jimmy Castor Bunch - Potential 

Crown Heights Affair - Far Out

Jackson 5 - Life of the Party (Moxie Edit)

Tensnake - In the End (I Want You to Cry)

Lindstrom & Christabelle - Baby Can't Stop (Remix)

Bobby Hutton - Lendahand (Bim Marx Edit)

Dam-Funk - Mirrors 

Slave - The Way You Love Is Heaven

Larry Houston - Promise (Instrumental)

Natural Four - Things Will Be Better Tomorrow

For this month's "Spine Blowing Decisions" - available here - I dipped a little deeper into the collection than I have on the show of late. Hopefully, some of the heat herein will warm up your winter wherever you may be. Selections include, but are not confined to, the following:

I haven't played some of these in a minute. (New Year's Resolution #468: buy fewer records, listen more to the records that I already own.) Others, like the Sir Henry Ivy 45 and Traphico track, I only learned about this year and am pleased as punch that I did. (New Year's Resolution #469: ignore the first half of NYR #468, keep getting quality records whenever possible.) Enjoy and happy holidays!

Business Before Pleasure

The homie K-Prince - a/k/a super-collector Kohji Maruyama - joins me on the set tomorrow evening. As some of you may or may not know Mr. Maruyama is one of the major players within Tokyo/NYC-based multi-media scheme team, BBP (Business Before Pleasure, Boogie Belly Productions etc.), who are responsible for any number of nifty items that would've otherwise only existed in the classic rap-obsessed recesses of one's Pelon-fixated imagination. We're talkin' 'bout...

The Ultimate Breaks & Beats pillow cushion.

The Hawaiian shirt adorned with the Fresh, Warlock, Partytime, and Sleeping Bag logos.

Last winter's favorites, the his AND her's Strong City coffee mugs. 

And, of course, a handful of must-own mixes by the likes of DJ Muro, Tus-One, and the late, great GM Roc Raida, who put together a fine tribute to Kid Capri's 52 Beats in early '08.

Well, after more than a minor amount of persuasion I finally got KP to agree to roll thru and play a few jams from his world class vinyl cache - the product of so many years spent sifting through decrepit vinyl emporiums across this great land of ours. A heavyweight collector of old school obscurities, and quality-small-label-late-80s/early-90s (i.e. RANDOM) rap, his expertise is evidenced by his half of the very special WKOD: The Golden Era of Hip-Hop mix he released with Muro-san some years back. His knowledge of serious tunes and dollar bin treasures (as well as the highways and byways of the Eastern seaboard and rust belt) has made him a mandatory go-to-guide for visiting collecting dignitaries from the Far East. Last year he hipped me to the heaviest Rupert Holmes track (definitely not the one with the drums) that'll ever damage your ear canals. (Report that other "Piño Colada" nonsense to the Pause Police.) 

Suffice to say, he knows his stuff, he's got the goods, and he'll be bringing it with him mañana. Classics, unknowns, breaks, disco, rap, disco-rap, super disco breaks with rappers rapping, boom-bap, Boomtown Rats, Fun Boy Three album tracks - really, whatever's clever since the Asahi will undoubtedly be flowing freely it's bound to get sloppy as we stumble to the AM. Dip-dip-dive, so-socialize, people!

Chi-Chi Baby

At the urging of the homie Zaid, I finally got around to checking the streamed audio of the forthcoming Mr. Peabody Records/BBE compilation, and it does not disappoint. The Martin L. Dumas, Jr. track, "Attitude, Belief and Determination," is particularly genius, sounding something like the best melodic elements of "Sun Goddess" and "Always There" combined in one mega nine-minute spiritual disco/soul extravaganza. Beautiful.

I never knew much about the Mr. Peabody folks other than whatever I could glean from occasionally eyeing their high-end ebay auctions. This little EPK fills in some of the blanks (pretty gangsta that they use Junei for the opening music bed):

RSOC doesn't come out till the new year - thus perhaps fortuitously depriving some of us of another chance to buy things for ourselves during the holiday season when we should be buying things for our loved ones. As indie Chi-town modern soul/disco goes my knowledge is largely limited to some of the more readily available stuff from this comp (Expo, Cheryl Berdell), or classic heatery like Mid Air and Starvue. The latter's "Body Fusion" has been anthologized/reissued a gang of times. But here's an intriguing lovers rock version that hopefully you haven't heard. Not as great as the OG admittedly, but still a cool curiosity. Enjoy!

Donovan Junior "Body Fusion" (Exodus)

Monty Stark, RIP

Sadly, the word over at the soulstrut board is that Monty Stark of Stark Reality passed away over the Thanksgiving holiday. I remember very vividly hearing the band's groovy Say Brother theme song on WGBH Channel 2 in Boston as a kid. Many years later after getting into records I wondered if the song was available on wax. A disappointing spin of the Mother Night 45 of the same name initially had me doubting so, until the real deal eventually turned up on one of those Keb Darge-curated BBE comps, and then OG copies began reliably showing up thru the Skippy White's/In Your Ear pipeline. With its moody intro, joyous horn blasts, and quasi-psych/out exit swell (climaxing with a tremendous hit from the gong) it's still one of my all-time favorites.

When Stones Throw reissued Stark Reality's legendary Discovers Hoagy Carmichael's Music Shop album a few years ago and Monty suddenly became readily accessible via soulstrut and email, I figured what the hell and relayed my epiphany to him - how happy I'd been to rediscover his song that stayed with me from childhood. I thanked him - just as a plethora of other "record digger" fan-boys did - for all his great music. After lavishing some heartfelt kudos on the Stark Reality reissue for Blender (back when these things called magazines existed) I was humbled when Monty took a moment to email a return "thank you" for the kind words (expressing particular amusement that I'd praised the yodelly, spaced cowboy quality of some of his vocals). But apparently that was pretty typical of his down-to-earth steez. 

 It's hard not to be geeked when you enjoy positive exchanges - even brief ones - with older folks whose art you revere. Maybe it's just because some of us romanticize things we were too young to be an active part of. Or feel the need to connect with those who helped shape our sensibilities. I wouldn't enjoy Stark Reality's music any less if I'd never heard from the man behind it. But the fact that I, and others, did couldn't be cooler. 

Mr. Monty Stark - thanks once again for the music and the memory. I'm apt to think that right about now there's a crazily fuzz-toned vibraphone rockin' out somewhere above the clouds...