Spaced Invaders

This is the set that Sonar played at the Project Runway Premiere Party at Caviar & Bananas on August, 20th 2009. The intro and the outro was DJ Scrunchyface Flatbroke. And we just had to leave that Boz Scaggs joint in there. It was too smooth not to.  Here’s the link to it on iTunes.

 

 DJ Sonar - Live @ The Project Runway Premier Party: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I don’t have too much time to write a super long post about this, but it’s definitely one of the most sought after albums by beat diggers. Oddly, you really don’t hear any steel drums on the opening track entitled “Down By The River” until close to the end. Most of the songs on this album are straight covers, but the cover for Kool & The Gang’s “Funky Stuff” the steel drums can be heard prominently and give that cover a great, very danceable vibe.

This Steel band is a twelve-piece seventies party band, consisting of Surinames and Trinidadian musicians.
Since Surinam was still part of The Netherlands in those days, the name of the band abroad was The Original Trinidad Steel Band and released two albums as such (Beautiful Caribbean and Caribbean Steel & Show on Hansa, with Frank Farian as their producer), apart from their three Dutch albums. Their most interesting Dutch album is Funky Limbo (EMI, 1978), which was produced by Ernie Anches. Anches was also involved with various other funky Surinam acts, such as Oscar Harris, The Twinkle Stars and Thunderstorm. The preceding album Dance Dance Dance (EMI, 1976) made DRSSB a lot more rare, because it contained their international hit single ‘January February’. This brought them a very busy touring schedule. Today the band is still active and consists of quite a few sons of the original members like Sticko who is the son of Dolf (Mr Satisfied) the founder of this Band.

Read (if you speak Dutch) the story and discography of the band here.

The Dutch Rhythm Steel & Show Band on My Space

Tracks
A1 Down By The River 5.09 (Vocals - Armand Colla)
A2 Theme From Shaft 2.41
A3 Snowfire 3.47  (Vocals - Gustaaf Milzink)
A4 Stoned Out Of My Mind 2.39
A5 Softly 2.57
A6 Hey Joe 3.19
B1 Feelin’ Alright 7.31
B2 Serenta 2.03
B3 Funky Stuff 3.22  (Vocals - Armand Colla , Bernito E. Riley)
B4 Where Is The Love 2.39 (Vocals - Gustaaf Milzink)

I did not have the opportunity to finish this last night, due to spending an extended period of time at a local Japanese steak house. But if it were still Friday, then this gem is what I would publish. Usually, I just like to review one song, but this album is a must for any crate digger, funk head, or any person just starting to dive into vinyl. This compilation features funk and soul during the 70’s from the sun-drenched ghettos of  Rio de Janeiro. This music shares some of the same qualities and struggles as their soul brothers in Harlem. You can hear the distinct sounds that influenced the Black Rio movement from labels such as Motown, Stax, and even the Godfather himself, James Brown helped shaped this blend of “soul brasileiro.” The drum rhythms have that distinct Brazilian flavor and Manito’s “Na Baixa do Sapateiro” the opening break left goosebumps and the hairs on my arms standing. I had to actually rewind the track to make sure I actually heard what I heard. Take a listen to the opening break:

Pretty damn nice wasn’t it? Anyway here is the complete tracklisting of the album. And yes there is a version of Rapper’s Delight on this album.

Tracklisting:
1 Gang Do Tagarela - Melo da Tagarela (Rapper´s Delight) (4:10)
2 Copa 7 - Copa 7 No Samba (2:53)
3 Grupo Arembepe - Iaia (3:04)
4 Uniao Black - Black Rio (2:46)
5 Miguel de Deus - Cinco Anos (4:56)
6 Jorge Ben - Comanche (2:58)
7 Trio Mocotó - Nago (3:40)
8 Banda Black Rio - Gafiera Universal (3:06)
9 Toni Tornado - Podes Crer, Amizade (2:30)
10 Eklipse Soul - Psicose (2:11)
11 Manito - Na Baixa Da Sapateiro (3:28)
12 Orlandivo - Onde Anda O Meu Amor (3:46)
13 Dom Salvador e Aboliçao - Som, Sangue E Raca (2:46)
14 Antonio Carlos E Jocafi - Kabaluere (2:22)
15 Orquestra E Coro - Kriola (2:27)
16 Gerson King Combo - Uma Chance (5:25)

This is a super funk, hype track that gets the crowd moving every time. Tried and true. You also heard this in the recent Busta Rhymes club banger, Don’t Touch Me. Listen and compare. Enjoy your Friday people

The Diplomats - I Can Give You Love

Busta Rhymes - Don’t Touch Me

I’m glad that there are still artists out there that are sampling the classics!

Keeping in line with the last Funk Friday post. I decided to drop some more Electro Funk for ya. This time showcasing one of my favorite all time late 70’s, early 80’s funk groups, Midnight Star. Midnight Star was one of those groups that were a little ahead of their time, but not too far where no one could get on their level. If you take a listen to them, nearly all tracks from them contained the vocoded, auto-tuned voice, that well T-Pain is wrongfully credited for starting. Anyway, here’s Midnight Star’s - Operator. It’s an awesome track plain and simple. Great vocal melodies, and of course vocoded voices.

I picked up this while browsing through the turntable lab website. I have to admit that this has been my guilty pleasure listen of 2008. I would sneak tracks of “The Bake Sale” into my sets and watch the crowd go nuts. Most of them didn’t know who it was, which made it even better! I have to admit that I did not hear a single radio station around the area drop a single track from this album, nor did any City Paper review. This album seems to me that it was one of the more over-looked albums of last year.

From day to day it gets more and more difficult to find real hip hop elements in today’s rap music. For the most part lyrics help. While there are plenty of artists that won’t rap about bitches, bling, guns, and violence many of them don’t have the means to. With bitches, bling, guns and violence off the list many of them rap about how they’re never going to rap about bitches, bling, guns and violence. As if they deserve some sort of metal for not killing anyone. The Cool Kids take a different approach to that and seemingly sum themselves up in the first few minutes of the album by stating, “Come check the noise, it’s the new black version of the Beastie Boys.”

Now hearing that lyric, and being a huge Beastie Boys fan, I guess I should be thinking. “How dare they have the gonads to say something like that.” Actually, that lyric got me to pay attention to the rest of the album. I am very happy that I did. These guys really are paying homage to the golden days of rap and do a good job at making the ideas of that time relevant with today’s music scene. Each tune is relatively catchy with good party rhymes. No lyrics about bling, no lyrics about Bentleys, none of that stuff. After listening to the intros to tracks on the album I feel like getting my white ass on the dance floor.

However, I do have to be a purist and say that there is very little funk and soul sampling in this album and that they have no DJs that they are rhyming for. Which stops this album from being a 10 for me. The reason for this is that they are paying homage to the golden age of rap in nearly every track on this album, but they excluded a main element of Hip Hop. So it’s almost like they are talking the talk but not walking the walk.

Don’t let that stop you from adding this album to your collection though. If you want a good party album, this is a good choice. DJs if you aren’t dropping tracks from this already, you need to be up on this level. The tracks are solid.

Track Listing:
1. What Up Man
2. One Two
3. Mikey Rocks
4. 88
5. What It Is
6. Black Mags
7. A Little Bit Cooler
8. Gold And A Pager
9. Bassment Party
10. Jingling

 

 Kool Kids - 88: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download