BEATS & PIECES
NARADA MICHAEL WALDEN himself says that Narada is pronounced to rhyme with “Florida”, which we always knew — and makes a nonsense of those “NAR-da” instructions that accompany his current hit!… Glen Goldsmith’s follow-up is the Jolley Harris Jolley-created fast 119½bpm nervily churning ‘What You See Is What You Get‘, already promoed… The Jets’ US smash coolly syncopated jaunty “purple” ‘Rocket 2 U‘ has taken its time to appear here on 12 inch, the seven inch being 121½-0bpm… Coldcut are soon releasing a twin 12 inch compilation “album” of their past productions, plus remixes and newies, comprising material released on their own label, called ‘Out To Lunch With Ahead Of Our Time‘ – which, however, has been preceded by a limited 200 copies ‘Hotplate 3‘ 12 inch with the ‘Set It Off’-ish “pshta pshta” hi-hatted (0-)116½bpm God And The Prophets ‘Work Me‘ and remixed meandering funky drummered 0-102½-0bpm Floormaster Squeeze ‘Kick Out The James (Again)‘, both with beats plus separate samples… WEA are jumping onto the brand new purpose built “rare groove” bandwagon with the Sheffield recorded ‘Funky Worm‘, nothing to do with the Ohio Players’ oldie, being a Manu Dibango plays ‘Spanish Hustle’-style Seventies jazz-funk type tune by a girl led group who also are called Funky Worm!… Island meanwhile are launching a new Mango Street logo aimed obviously at the same pirate radio DJs who seem to break all this “new” rare groove stuff, with Overlord X’s 0- 107⅔bpm ‘The Earth Is Moving‘, a London rap scratching jittery old Donald Byrd grooves… DJ Master Scratch has created what’s promised is the accurately titled T-Cut-F ‘House Reaction (The Final Mixdown)’ (10 Records TENR226), a good bounding 125-0bpm remix adding LL Cool J’s bit from House Gang’s ‘Cool J Trax’, Reese & Santonio’s ‘Bounce Your Body To The Box’, the “can you dig it?” from Larry Williams & Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson’s old Northern Soul hit ‘Too Late’, and more… Whitney Houston’s ‘Love Will Save The Day‘ has already had lots of radio play in anticipation of its singles release, but approval is still awaited for a new remix before it actually appears on 12 inch — which didn’t stop it somehow being included in Capital Radio’s supposedly sales based London Dance Chart lost week!… Chad Jackson and Sefton The Terminator are remixing Eric B & Rakim’s old ‘As The Rhyme Goes On’ to help enable Fourth & Broadway grab a bit of belated action… Midlands house label Kool Kat has picked up the Terry Baldwin (Housemaster) featuring Bud Latour acid four-tracker, possibly to launch a new offshoot logo, there evidently now being new rap and deep house vocal remixes of ‘Delta House’ about… Marie Birch has licensed Smith & Mighty’s ‘Anyone’ to try and give it further mileage on her own Beatmaster Records… Ten City’s US seven inch versions are all new re-recordings as the 12 inch mixes keep developing so much that that they are virtually impossible to edit — as Fred Dove discovered, although edit them he has had to for UK 12 inch release, ‘One Kiss Will Make It Better’ being most drastically shortened, from 10:21 to just 4:37 … Tim Smith, after my recent comments, has managed to swing not only a soul show, but a daytime soul show onto Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s Metro Radio, every Sunday afternoon 2-4pm, called ‘Essential Rhythm’… Louil Silas Jr and Timmy Regisford didn’t end up with time to do a London gig last week after all, but will be back in August when it’s promised that a four-handed mixing night will be properly planned!… Todd Terry Project’s ‘Back To The Beat’ is 120½bpm, last week’s review somehow omitted, Teddy Pendergrass ‘Joy’ is 103⅔bpm on UK 12 inch, the dub and instrumental being 103½bpm, while it’s Blaztzone (rather than Blaztone) who do ‘Blast The Walls Out’… ‘Tribute (Right On)‘ by the Pasadenas having been played so much on radio in its more vocal seven inch edit, I now realise that it’s not so much jazz-funk as Philly soul in (Archie Bell-ish) style… Soul II Soul’s female singer appears to be Rose Windross rather than Windrush as the promos spelt her… London group Sahara have changed their name to Intimate Connection for US releases… ‘Tune In (Turn On The Acid House)’ despite a colourful label crediting it to Superman on the DC Records Inc logo (highly unlikely!), turns out apparently to be by Psychic TV – more indie boys getting into acid (and confusing rm’s readers even further?)… Cooltempo emphasise that the Taurus Boyz consist of Dancin’ Danny D and (the Adventures’ producer) Gary Bell, while Kevin Henry is merely guest vocalist… Blow consists of trumpeter Gordon Mathewman and keyboardist/programmer Adam Routh… Nigel ‘Nick’ Halkes, a regular correspondent for seven years since he set up a mobile disco in Bristol as a 13-year-old, is a big boy now and muscling into the music business with strong New York contacts, his first deal being the US release on Easy Street of The Funky Ginger’s already reviewed ‘Slaughterhouse‘, a UK production that was only ever on obscure white label here last year… Joe Field, another correspondent from an early age, still busy around Milton Keynes/Hemel Hempstead/Watford, now also handles Thursdays at Soho’s Gullivers in Ganton Street — and has started a Voice Box service on 0442-216605 which supplies a number of famous voice impersonations for answering machine messages (WEA Promotions already have a “Ronald Reagan“)… Tony Hodges has set up a High Wycombe-based mobile catering company called Col. P’Funk Catering Corps (0494-449855), covering the area west of London, each van carrying its own SL1200s equipped disco unit and a DJ as driver, serving up food and funk!… Ray Keith joins Dave Malone, Guy Palmer and Turbo to funk/rare groove Sudbury’s Jades on the A134 this Thursday (26), then they’re all joined by Radio Orwell DJ Busta Brooker at Colchester’s LAristos on Monday (30)… Saturday (28) finds Simon Goffe, Steve Wolfe, Danny Smith and Jamie Trundle souling Gt Yarmouth’s Scruples, and Gwen McCrae appearing live with Martin Collins, Steve ‘Jammin’’ Jason and Chris ‘Charlie’ Brown at Peterborough’s Wirrina Centre… Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley is live in concert this Saturday (28) at the Sweat Box in Harlow’s HighWire, where on Bank Holiday Monday (30), Gwen McCrae then likewise appears at a noon-2am alldayer with Pete Tong, Jeff Young, Kev Hill, Gilles Peterson, Bob Jones, Nicky Holloway, Eddie Gordon, Les Knott and more, plus PAs by Will Downing, Wee Papa Girl Rappers, Soul II Soul and Mac Thornhill (all for £7!)… Sunday (29) sees Martin Collins, Chris ‘Charlie’ Brown, Stu Banks, Dave Malone, Rayon & Owen, and Ray Keith (some of these guys is busy!) at an undergraduate do in Cambridge’s Ronnelles… Bank Holiday Monday (30) also features the noon-1am Pres Jam alldayer at Gt Yarmouth’s Tiffanys with Chris Hill, Robbie Vincent, Jeff Young, Froggy, Ian Reading, Johnny Walker, plus PAs by the CCR Crew and Unit B3 and another doubtless more rare groove-ish non-midnight alldayer at Putney’s Micawbers with Jasper the Vinyl Junkie, Jazzy M, Ray Stevens, Nigel Wilton, Keith Diamond and Steve R… Simon Dunmore and Jon Jules are joined by Jay Strongman at Greenford’s Greenford Hotel on Tuesday (31) for their more or less fortnightly Soul City night, held the second and last Tuesday of each month (next on June 14)… Jon Jules, John Matthews, Phil Edgart and Mixer B funk the under-19s Bass Bin every Saturday lunchtime at South Harrow’s The Avenue… Nottingham DJ Graeme Park’s only regular weekly gig these days is actually in Sheffield, on Wednesdays at the Leadmill, now that Derby’s 20th Century has closed!… Andrew Holmes, the “original” Madhatter DJ, spins upfront stuff at Big Beat Sundays in Royton’s Scandals… Gordon ‘Fizz’ Phillips has swapped several of his Kent gigs to move to Ashford’s Dustys on Wed/Sat/Sundays… Mica Paris next month supports Will Downing at the Bottom Line club in New York before both fly back to London, Mica going on to Paris as support for Ray Charles at a jazz festival while Will plays July 2/3 at the Dominion with his own band (which includes Brian Jackson)… I still think James Brown says “get offa my chip” at the start of the US version of ‘I’m Real’, even if the current hip hop expression is “my own tip” (chip surely meaning microchip, alluding possibly to sampling?)… Mick Brahn, considering all the namechecks I’ve given Mick & Pat recently, might at least have waited until my two seconds’ appearance before “knobbing off” the LA Mix video on Night Network — but then, despite his Bass Weejuns collecting “Mr Supercool” image, he obviously had no real knowledge of ‘Check This Out’ and its send-up nature, as his denigrating comment about it being “yet another record that features ‘this is a journey into sound'” proved (yup, it had got that close to my cameo “heckle”!)… GET OFF!
GARY TAYLOR, the suave Californian soulster in somewhat Michael McDonald style, recently had his classy new largely downtempo listening LP reviewed in full on import, and now it’s out here — ‘Compassion’ (10 Records DIX 77) — together with a jarringly inappropriate juddering 0-108¾-108⅙-0bpm Club Remix of the rolling title track, ‘Compassion’ (10 Records TEN X 232), more techno-flash than song like this (in three mixes, plus the dead slow ‘Follow’, not on LP).
HINDSIGHT recently visited the US to promote their debut single there, and while being interviewed on Stevie Wonder’s radio station KJLH were overheard by TV presenter Don Cornelius saying that their biggest ambition was to appear on his show, ‘Soul Train’ (a weekly black music dance party with a few lip-synched PAs). “Find those guys!”, legend (and the press release) would have us believe Cornelius shouted, and the upshot was that they did indeed appear on the May 21st edition, coast to coast across the States. Henri Defoe and Camelle Hinds ore here seen looking happy with Don Cornelius to prove it!
MIKE ‘HITMAN’ WILSON, resuming our faces behind the names on the labels section, is the often credited Chicago house master who most recently, together with buddy Mr Lee, has been behind the House Gang on his own International House Records label — their ‘Hittrax II’ four-tracker, incidentally, will soon be out here on Kool Kat while its hottest track, the LL Cool J-scratching ‘Cool J Trax‘, will also be on the upcoming GRC double LP ‘House Music Vol 1’.
HOT VINYL
JAMES BROWN ‘I’m Real (F.F. Hyped Up Mix)’ (Scotti Bros JSBX 1)
For some reason his Full Force-produced jerky funk jitterer is only here in this impetus losing 105⅚-0bpm joltingly abrupt US B-side version, which may sound more “modern” but then that is hardly the point considering everyone wants Mr Brown to sound like his classic oldies again – which indeed he does on the UK-only flip’s far more traditional excellent 108-0bpm ‘Keep Keepin’‘, featuring Maceo Parker on sax and in a comedy finale, the side that’s been selling it on pre-release.
ROXANNE SHANTÉ ‘Go On Girl’ (Breakout USAT 633)
So impatiently awaited that it was by a huge margin the biggest seller on pre-release in last week’s Club Chart, this Marley Marl-produced distinctively pitched frenetic 115⅔bpm jiggler (Dub too) is extremely like Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock as both make the same use of Lyn Collins’s ‘Think (About It)’, the sparser bumping and scratching Sparse Instrumental and Rapid Radio Vocal being 115bpm.
RICK JAMES ‘Loosey’s Rap’ (Warner Bros W7885T)
Much plugged by the likes of Robbie Vincent but not out fully until June 6, this mesmeric chunkily rolling jogger is a salacious lips licking song of praise to a young lovin’ machine, who then answers in the distinctively rapping shape of Roxanne Shanté, at 100⅓bpm in Rix Mix and its Instrumental, with a denser 99⅓bpm Marley Marl Mix and Big Daddy Kane/Roxanne-rapped version, plus a drily thundering 0-119½bpm stuttery Loosey’s House Of Trix Mix, terrific! Continue reading “May 28, 1988: James Brown, Roxanne Shanté, Rick James, Rose Royce, Brass Construction”
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