ODDS ‘N’ BODS
HOT CUISINE ‘All Fired Up’ due to DJ demand will be re-released on newly lengthened 12in remix as the double A-side, so check which version you’re buying . . . Lenny White ‘Fancy Dancer’ finally made into a proper record at last, is circulating in an extended version as flip to a white label 12in promo of Kleeer ‘Get Tough’ . . . K.I.D. ‘Don’t Stop’ new catalogue number is 12EMI 5143 . . . ConFunkShun ‘Too Tight’ was originally only serviced on one-sided white label 12in, concealing the fact that its ‘Play Widit‘ flip is a far superior choppily starting brassy 123 (intro) – 121 – 123bpm instrumental bass bumper . . . Gene Dunlap, with a 3-track UK 12in of ‘Love Dancin’ / ‘It’s Just The Way I Feel’ / ‘Surest Things Can Change’ due imminently, used to play with Roy Ayers amongst others, so his ‘Running Away’ similarity ain’t so surprising, while his LP’s liner notes have indeed made a cock-up of the fact that Earl Klugh is on guitar . . . Jacksons ‘Can You Feel It’ plus the LAX LP and a Bob James newie should be due from CBS next week . . . WMOT and TEC have merged in the States . . . Champagne’s latest acquisition is Sylvia Striplin ‘Give Me Your Love’, which will explain its future chart progress . . . James Brown’s follow-up will not be the obvious ‘Funky Men’, but ‘Stay With Me’ instead . . . Manu Dibango has a white label 12in floating about . . . Showstoppers’ Caister ’81 over the first weekend in April has already sold out . . . Colin Day (Luxembourg Royal Bugatti), who remembers with me the day when soul music was soulful, reports that club regulars Ottawan have a new 12in ‘Haut Les Mains (Hands Up)’ as awful/good as the other two! . . . Al Taylor of St Asaph Stables fame starts a new Sunday Soul Club this weekend at Rhyl’s Dixieland Showbar with good music, free admission, pub booze ‘n’ food from 8-11.30pm . . . Honey Bee Benson, when not taking her new improved roadshow around the country, is at Gloucester’s plush Arabellas on Tues/Wed/Thursdays . . . Andy St John (02013 – 71972), who makes reasonably priced and customised disco jingles, is looking for jazz-funk/soul club gigs following the closure of Bournemouth’s Stateside Center (which I must say comes as a shock) . . . Stevie Allan, no longer packing thousands into Liverpool Rotters as he’s at Oscars instead now, needs bookings anywhere in the UK (051 426 2069) . . . Des A (Birkenhead NFR) sez Merseyside’s buzzing about new jazz-funk band Sutch ‘N’ Sutch . . . Gary Allan (Liverpool McMillans) finds that duck-calls make more noise than kazoos when used with Skyy ‘No Music’, while meanwhile Chris Hill has picked up on Gary’s recommendation of Roger Squire’s electronic syndrum, finding though that a dull-thud setting is great for running through vari-synch segues to add to the mix and the actual syndrum, “ping” is dynamite with “echo” . . . Canvey Goldmine’s suntanned Stan Barrett is a year older on Monday . . . Robbie Vincent caught up with a box load of jazz oldies in Florida, so now he too can play Eddie Ross . . . BMRB’s singles chart (the Top 75 most used by the music business) will now only include records with a trade price between 50p and £1.25 (ex VAT), with no more than four tracks, one featured artist, and 15 minutes maximum playing time – which will obviously affect some disco releases (Sugarhill’s ‘Rapper’ 12in to name but one) . . . Peter Young’s ‘Capital Countdown’ on Saturday mornings at 9am is compulsive listening for anyone interested in what’s actually selling in London, the first hour containing as well Peter’s intelligent section of hot newies, many of ’em jazzy/soulful . . . ‘TISWAS!’ then makes it difficult for me to sleep on Saturdays until the afternoon! . . . Hiroshima may play up their Japanese angle but are merely third generation Japanese-Americans from Los Angeles, founder Dan Kuramoto’s wife June Okida Kuramoto being the only member actually born in Japan, and an expert on the classical koto – but can she suck a large one? . . . Chris Dinnis (Exeter Boxes), by all accounts a nice lad, now resents my trying to get people to take him seriously . . . George Power & Andy Hunter say “hi” – or, more appropriately, “lo!” – to Sugar Shack (drop ’em Chris!) . . . John Grant (Manchester) says a chop between synths at end of Casiopea ‘Eyes Of Mind’ into Whispers ‘It’s A Love Thing’ is very effective, Kev Hill (Basildon Sweeneys) recommends Disco Dub Band ‘For The Love Of Money’ oldie out of Funk Masters, while Alan Coulthard (Barry Atlantic Wine Bar) revives Frantique ‘Strut Your Funky Stuff’ out of Fantasy, and joins many others running Sharon Redd through Blondie’s break . . . Chart File readers note, the Anglos ‘Incense’ was not by Stevie Wonder but by Jimmy Miller, before he became an Island producer . . . Robbie Collins (Ilford Room At The Top) suggests a new name for Futurist could be “Hi-Tech” – which of course you hear in a Hi-Tech Disco-Tech (we’ll let you know!) . . . Alan Donald (Rothesay Paddle Boat) suggests, “CHIP”, Chart for Hip Intellectual People – he obviously hasn’t seen the Futurist fans who used to hang out in the Rock Garden! . . . Divyen Shah (Harrow) likes pop music, and that’s all right . . . Martin Platts (Blackburn) maybe doesn’t realise his anagram is Stalin M Pratt! . . . John Mayoh (Thornton Illawalla Country Club) has along with many others noticed a sudden widespread taste for oldies amongst punters, making new product difficult to break – is this because of the recession keeping people at home more, or what? . . . I’d welcome your views on this, but in the meantime do your best to KEEP IT GOOD!
RAY CARLESS, Jamaica-born but British bred since the early ’60s, has been blowing tenor sax for years with a variety of musical acts, fronting his own reggae/funk Zami in the mid-’70s and then touring Europe with Afro-jazz/rock Boombaye before backing such as Hi-Tension, Jimmy Lindsay, Central Line and Black Slate (‘Amigo’) on record. Now his jazz preference has been given free reign on ‘Tarantula Walk’, due on Ensign 12in in a fortnight but circulating on promo already, featuring his sinuously strung out honking sax line over a bass-bumbled loping 118 – 119 – 120 – 121bpm thud beat. Ray may be Carless but he sure ain’t clueless (ouch – sorry, ‘baht that)!
IMPORTS
KLEEER: ‘Get Tough’ (LP ‘License To Dream’ US Atlantic SD 19288).
The base-pushed group now features some good looking chicks too, this dynamite rattling-introed sparse and steadily progressing 116 – 118 – 120 – 121 (bass on) bpm jittery driver having great piano breaks and a John Wayne impersonator, exploding over the weekend for all who used it (try mixing out of Young & Co ‘I Like’ for starters!). Far and away THE track, it’s infinitely better than the freakily introed 116 – 118bpm ‘De Kleeer Ting‘ and 124 – 126bpm ‘Running Back To You‘, although the gentle 101bpm swaying ‘Sippin’ & Kissin‘ is pretty.
Apart from a Frank Hooper LP containing a remix of ‘This Feelin’ and an evidently undistinguished RJ’s Latest Arrival 12in, there wasn’t much else about on import last week.
UK NEWIES
T.S. MONK: ‘Bon Bon Vie’ (Mirage K11653T).
Unexpectedly, out of the blue, good sense has prevailed and although ‘Candidate For Love‘ is already pressed it’s been shelved temporarily in place of this fabulous jauntily chugging sleazy singalong 109bpm catchy tripper, due on 12in, huge on import and a far more commercial hit-bound bet as it’s much requested already.
JOE SAMPLE: ‘Burnin’ Up The Carnival’ (MCA MCAT 571).
Brazilian flavoured exotic chix-sung throbbing and thrumming 107 – 109 – 108 – 109 – (incl break) – 0bpm jaunty skipper, with long piano passages, now remixed for 12in but not necessarily better than the LP version, may be rhythmically complex for general disco punters although of course anyone with an ear will love it. Continue reading “February 7, 1981: “A mixture of white rock and Wally pop can hardly fail with fashion–jumping posers, can it?””
