One day I came across this record and it took me a second to realize where I knew it from. The cover of Judgement! is the inspiration for the Atmosphere album Overcast!. So i figured I would give it a shot. Overall I was kind of underwhelmed by it, I like about half of the songs but I was expecting more. That said others hold this record in high regard. But I’ve decided to make one of its songs, “Flea Flop”, the Jazz Song of the Week. As loyal readers know by now I’m a fan of the vibraphone, which it has, but the songs I don’t like its usually due to Andrew Hills style. It has a pretty good lineup of players
Piano: Andrew Hill
Double Bass: Richard Davis
Vibraphone: Bobby Hutcherson
Drums: Elvin Jones
For this Maybe You Missed It it’s time for some Redman goodness. “Funkorama” is originally from the 1996 Erick Sermon compilation called Insomia. The remix is from 2001 and is by the Cloudkickers. The Cloudkicers are made up of djs/producers DJ Eli and Shan Boogs. They got their name in hiphop but now both have moved to more house/dancey music. DJ Eli currently goes by Eli Escobar and its Shan Boogie now. This remix is from an album of remixes they put out in 2001 called Cloudkicers RMX EP. I remember this song being played on The CM Famalam Show and emailing Bobbito going “what was that Redman track?” and ordering it from Sandbox Automatic the next day. There are a couple more nice remixes on the records but this is my favorite. The vinyl came in blank white sleeves with no track listing. I don’t think a ton of them were pressed up also with them being unofficial remixes and them moving on from hiphop it doesnt seem like anymore will ever surface.
Redman “Funkorama” [Cloudkickers Remix]
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You can download it here. If you like it/hate it feel free to leave a comment.
This Vs. is the battle of Scooby Doo samples. MF Doom sampled the Scooby Doo theme for his song “Hey!” that was on his first MF Doom full length album Operation Doomsday released in 1999. In fact “Hey!” first appeared on the first MF Doom single in 1997 that had Dead Bent and Gas Drawls as well. But the metal faced one wasn’t the first one to the sample as Lord Finesse beat him to the punch when he released “You Know What I’m About” in 1992. It appeared on the soundtrack to the film Trespass. The vinyl version of “You Know What I’m About” was only released as a promo. But then in 2005 “You Know What I’m About” was rereleased with the instrumental an acapella.
For the second installment of It’s A Demo I turn to El-P. “Everything Must Go” aka “EMG” was from his 2007 album I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead but recently he made this demo version available. Lyrics and the basic timing sounds the same but the demo version is much more stripped down then the album version. The album version is much more dense with the various layers of sound. In the demo the drums and the X-Clan sample aren’t fighting as hard to be heard and the guitar sample gives it a little different flavor.
El-P “Everything Must Go” [Demo]
you need flash to play the song
You can download this demo here. If you have a demo you think that would be good to share with the people (either yours or something you have came across over the years) feel free to hit me up (info is in the Contact section).
This is the first of a new feature I’m calling It’s A Demo. As you could guess from the name it’s to share demos of songs. It could be from promising up and coming artist/group or demos of released songs.
I’m a huge Death From Above 1979 fan, they no longer exist as a group, but it did consist of Jesse F. Keeler on bass and Sebastien Grainger on drums and vocals. Since breaking up Keeler spent more time with MSTRKRFT which is an electronic group he is in with Alex Puodziukas aka Al-P. Sebastian put out an album with a backing band called Sebastian and The Mountains. I’m not really a fan of either post DFA1979 group but I do like the song I’m sharing here.
It certainly seems like in the demo of “(Are There) Ways To Come Home?” this was something Sebastien worked on by himself before sharing/collaborating on it with his band. Also there are large stretches in the demo with no words that eventually get filled in on the finished version.
Sebastien Grainger “(Are There) Ways To Come Home? [Demo]”
you need flash to play the song
You can download this demo here. If you have a demo you think that would be good to share with the people (either yours or something you have came across over the years) feel free to hit me up (info is in the Contact section).
Show Me Your Soul Sunday never really got off the ground. I made two posts and then never got around to any more. Post 3 was going to be about The Dixie Hummingbirds but I never got around to writing it and for a while I didn’t want to write about anyone else until I did that one. Then eventually I forgot about it. But I might make an effort to make it a regular sunday thing.
And after this long delay will I give you a good write up on someone? Nope, maybe next week. I honestly know very little about this group, The Bluegrass Cardinals. I only know them because they had a couple songs on a bluegrass compilation I got a few years ago. Maybe in a future installment I’ll have more to say about them or a reader will leave a good comment but for now I’m just going to throw this song at you.
The Bluegrass Cardinals “Just A Little Talk With Jesus”t
you need flash to play the song
Merchandise
The Bluegrass Cardinals – The Essential Bluegrass Cardinals album CD / MP3
Back in the days when I first started writing reviews for Elemental magazine I had my own section within the review section. A lot of the stuff I would cover was more underground and harder to find at the time. Nowadays with just a few clicks of the mouse you can find just about any music you want but it wasn’t nearly as easy in the late 90s and early 2000s. Some of the stuff I bought from online sites, some stuff was sent to me by the artists or their people and some from the magazine.
One of these albums was called Stew For 6 by 6th Sense. I never kept the issues so I can’t really quote what I initially said about it but I liked it. Most of the production is handled by 6th himself but he does get one beat each from Frequency, Wilbe and Blockhead. As far as I know this album never came out so I figure it would make a good Maybe You Missed It. He is part of a crew called Notherground and he continues to produce and rap. A few years ago I ended up listening to his album It’s Coming Soon and it was kinda meh to me so I stopped checking for him. So I can’t say if his other work is nice or not but you can download a decent amount of free albums of his and the crew at notherground.blogspot.com.
It’s been a while since I dropped a MP2000 Monday song but I think my downtime is behind me. This one is from French pianist Maurice Vander from his album Chess which is #62. It’s an ok jazz record, about half the tracks I would skip but there are some decent stuff. However there nothing that you have to hear (in my opinion). The players on this record are
Piano/Organ: Maurice Vander
Drums/Percussion: Christian Lété
Bass: Gus Nemeth
Maurice Vander “Gaston & Adolphine”
you need flash to play the song
Also MP2000 fans don’t forget to check out the MP2000 Super Posts 1,2 & 3 for lots of more info and goodness
This is a Vs. battle to see who took an Isley Brothers sample (”Between the Sheets”) and turned it into a better song. Others before and after have used the same sample, the most famous being The Notorious B.I.G. hit “Big Poppa”. The ATCQ song is the a remix of Bonita Applebum that was featured on a Bonita Applebum/Mr. Muhammad 12″ it also is on the ATCQ compilation called Revised Quest For The Seasoned Traveller which I wouldn’t reccomend. The Common song is produced by No I.D. and was on Common’s debut album Can I Borrow A Dollar?
A Tribe Called Quest “Bonita Applebum [Hootie Mix]”
I listen to a lot of hiphop so this website features a lot of hiphop but I’m trying to make an effort to shine the light on other kinds of music. Which leads me to making a rock Free Album Friday post. The Wild are a four member group from Atlanta. They play rock with a bit of country/folk twang. They made Set Ourselves Free as a free download but you can send them a few bucks via paypal or buy the record or CD here. It’s a good album, some of the songs sound a little too much alike for me but overall it’s worth checking out. You can download Set Ourselves Free here.
In addition to being in the band the members also work at Wonder Root which is a non profit center for artists. They have a production studio, dark room, place to practice etc. Sounds like a really great idea you can visit WonderRoot.org to learn more about it and donate some money.
