iPhone Shots

Spring

The entire campus is saturated with the aroma of flowers. I could live like this year-round!

Two Wheels Good

The thing I like about editing and sampling songs is that it sometimes breaths new life into a forgotten track, or modernizes a dated sound.

1985:

Boy the Blockley Pourhouse in Philly has been gettin some heavy hitters lately. Slum Village on Wednesday May 1, for 12 bucks?

2005:

2012 Deep house on Soul Free Records outta da UK:

Straight up house from who-knows-where:

It’s a shame Alicia Myers has such a small catalog of work cuz what she does have all goes straight to my desert island soundtrack.

1981:

Twenty Five Years And Still Public Enemy #1

It’s a big week for Public Enemy; They released an 8-vinyl box set on Monday April 15, tonight they are getting inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, and they’ll tour the US in spring & summer.

Twenty five years have passed since Yo! Bum Rush The Show was released, which is an album that is very dear to me.

I bought it when it was released in 1987  in a Mt. Pleasant, Michigan record store, and I still have it. Having never heard nor heard OF the band before, I selected the album based on their obvious love of the Oldsmobile 98; not the Benz or the Beemer, nor the Cadillac, but the lowly “98″. Damn if their ode to that underdog on You’re Gonna Get Yours isn’t one hell of a hip hop jam to this day.

MP3: Public Enemy- You’re Gonna Get Yours

Tragedy

I was riding my bike to work this fine spring morning, crossing through a rather large intersection and noticed a bunch of record albums strewn about the road. I figured they were probably common classic rock or show tunes but I stopped to get a closer look anyway, and to my horror, they were almost all classic 70s soul, and all of them- each and every one- had been driven over countless times, so there was no chance of resuscitation.

Titles included The Four Tops, The Commodores Live, Stevie Wonder, Funkadelic, Miles Davis…

Here’s some new stuff to drown our sorrows:

My favorite new reggae producer AND singer have a new release expected in Sept. I ripped this new track from a live BBC show:

MP3: Prince Fatty feat Holly Cook- Superfast

D’Angelo and Philly’s ?uestlove did a live cover of S.O.S Band‘s Tell Me If You Still Care. The sound quality is excellent so I hadda rip a version:

MP3: D’Angelo- Tell Me If You Still Care (Live)

Here’s the vid

Portland’s* STRFKR have a new LP on Polyvinyl Records and itsa nice. No clunkers throughout:

MP3: STRFKR- Beach Monster (4shared download)

*From today on, no one shall append the word “Oregon” after writing the word “Portland”. When mentioning music, culture, food, etc. from that city, all readers will assume we mean the West Coast version.

Can’t Get Past The Lips

One of my go-to music sites Rollo & Grady has been posting a plethera of rock n roll rompers as of late. Here are just a couple.

The Future League from LA, 2012:

Thee Oh Sees from San Fran, new this year but I’ve been digging their stuff since 2008:

MP3: Thee Oh Sees- Toe Cutter-Thumb Buster (c/o Rollo & Grady)

The Lovely Bad Things, from L.A., 2012:

MP3: The Lovely Bad Things – You Done Messed up (c/o Rollo & Grady)

Park The Van Records has offered a really solid compilation free on their Facebook page. It includes this great track from Oklahoma’s Broncho. 2011:

Now go back a while to 1979:

MP3: The Buzzcocks- Lipstick (boxnet download)

Nu disco from Belgium:

I will leave you with some samply beats care of a conglomeration called Condensed Milk, who’ve put out a stellar 3 volume collection of instrumentals with great artwork. All tracks name your price:

My Ever Changing Moods

This video is amazing on so many levels. The song is a forgotten favorite that I just heard for the first time in years.

I never knew this video existed until today, so what a shock it is to see young Paul Weller lip-syncing while riding a vintage 80s road bike. (Notice how their saddles are sitting almost directly on the frame? That’s how they sized ‘em back then, two sizes too large!)
1984
I dug this up from my old collection of mixtapes. I’ll tell you more about them later because it’s quite a story. In the meantime, here are more gems from that pile.

Paul’s old band. 1980:

Mark E. Smith and his revolving door band The Fall have more records than I have parking tickets. Lucky for me, their best was released while I was a college radio DJ, so I got to play the hell out of I Am Kurious Oranj. There are a handful of stellar tracks on that LP that stand up well to the times. 1988:

box.com download

The Damned 1979:

Damn I had way too much industrial music on those cassettes. Not much of that Wax Trax Chicago shit sounds very good today so all of those tapes can go directly in the trash.

One industrial band that really holds up well is Nitzer Ebb. I even have a friend of a friend to recently admitted than they’re still his favorite band. Both from 1988:

I’ll leave with an early Madchester track from Happy Mondays. The press reported that leader Shaun Ryder was tripping balls 24/7 and he looks to be as such in this video.

I wrote for luck, they sent me you. Classic. 1989: