Goxxip – DIY with Body & Soul

Great Googly Moogly… I saw The Gossip play live in Brussels just the other day and it was absolutely smashin’. They really made an impact. Gossip’s leading lady Beth Ditto is not just a great vocalist and performer but apparently she knows well how to tremble a sensitive snare - as we put it around these parts. Many young, gay and gravitairy challenged people look up to her and find her to be some kind of punk role model. Good for them. For a more down to earth straight person like me it’s all about the music and they really delivered with fire and soul. Or rather body and soul because you can’t overlook Gossip’s front lady. Her voice is the main attraction but her performance and appearance ad a lot of amusement value. She’s fun to watch. She’s small, round but all female and without any complexes about it. I think she has a great future ahead of her but so does the rest of the band. Their sound is sparse and primitive but nevertheless a real knockdown. They rave up Rock music and the final result shows again what R&R should really be and once was: some great dance music. I also hope their message gets across.

There is also another band currently mixing the Do It yourself attitude of punk(rock) with some Soul and Gospel: The Noisettes. I don’t know much about them but they caught my attention with their tribute to the early rock pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Gossip – Coal To Diamonds
Gossip – Keeping You Alive
The Gossip – Careless Whispers (Live Wham cover)

The Noisettes – Sister Rosetta (capture the spirit)
The Noisettes - Don't Give Up

Sheik Yer Bouti

La Derriere dans l'envers de Bollywood.

Playlist:

1 Mandam Aliek – Nawal Elzoughi (Arabic)

2 Alfrah Baladi – Mostafa Sax (Egyptian)

3 The potion of desire – L'orchestre de danse orientale, exotic oriental bellydancing

4 Scimitar – L'orchestre de danse orientale, exotic oriental bellydancing

5 Spice – L'orchestre de danse orientale, exotic oriental bellydancing

6 Temptation – Arash (iranian)

7 Mehbooba – Sholay (indian)

8 Arrab Habibi – Tamer Hosni (arabic)

9 Saharik Bahrel Le – Sözlü Pop arabic, Mezdeke 2 (Turkish)

10 Maach – Afshin (iranian)

Get Physical Music’s 5th Anniversary

In 2002 Walter Merziger, Arno Kammermeier (Booka Shade), Philipp Jung, Patrick Bodmer (MANDY) together with Thomas Koch and Peter Hayo started their own label. Five years and nearly 80 releases on, the Berlin/Prenzlauer Berg-based label has grown and evolved into one of the globe's top dance labels with eclectic tastes in Disco Funk, Chicago House, Electro house, Techno, Deep House and Tech House.
This broad taste and the occasional impulse of new blood let Get Physical to break the mould and prevent an all too obvious Get Physical sound. The label made benefit from the momentum of German electronic music and established a strong roots in clubbing. Almost all the Get Physical singles and 12 inches are clubhits (In White Rooms, Mandarine Girl, Body Language, Walk Right Back,…)

To celebrate this anniversary they released a CD with new and exclusive tracks by in-house talents Booka Shade, DJ T, MANDY and Lopazz and remixes of some of Get Physical's greatest hits by highly respected producers.

Naturally, the anniversary will be flanked by a European tour that will bring them to 10 days off in Ghent in July.

Booka Shade – Vertigo (Henrik Schwarz remix)
MANDY + Booka Shade – Body Language (Konrad Black remix)
DJ T – Freemind (Dexter remix)
Samim – Rora (original mix)
Booka Shade – Unhealthy Pleasures
Riton + Heidi – Vejer (Padded Cell remix)
Fuckpony – Ride The Pony (Sebastien Tellier remix)
Booka Shade – Mandarine Girl (Fakesch remix)
Booka Shade – Night Falls (Larry Gold’s ‘Night Falls Over Philly’ String Version)
Lopazz – The Fact (original mix)
Lopazz – Migracion (Fujiya & Miyagi remix)
Chelonis R. Jones – I Don’t Know (Herbert’s Presets Only Mix)

There is still a recent Essential mix by Booka Shade on the BBC site.

no need for a name

I’m almost trough with this chain of concerts. The Gossip and Chromeo are still on schedule.
The last gig on Wednesday was really great as I knew it would be. Les Rita Mitsouko gave 3 concerts in a row at a small venue to promote their new album Varieté. Cathérine Ringer is still pretty and wild and custom made for a live on stage. She has a very unique body language, which is totally her own. The way she moves, dances, gesticulates and makes faces at people or to underline the content of the lyrics. She’s a true original.

Because the Orangerie in La Botanique is so small, I got the chance of seeing them from up close. It’s was really… frappant… to see, as they get older, that Cathérine Ringer and Frederic Chichin start to look more and more as characters from Jacques Tardi, auteur of graphic novels [Tardi wouldn’t like this label though, but there just isn’t a other English equivalent for the French and Dutch terms apart from comics]. I'll give proof later on.
it's pretty funny. They still look great and more important sound great.

Another welcome surprise was the preset Sebmartel. I had never heard of Sébastien Martel but apparently he’s still one of France best kept secrets.

Now that things are slowing down a bit I can spend more time relaxing, reading books and checking out what I’ve been missing all those years from not having a TV set. I bought the DVD box of The BBC series The Office, including the Xmas specials. I’m turning into a real couch potatoo for the moment because Green Wing, another fine example of British comedy is scheduled for the next rainy evenings.

88 The Temptations – Don’t Let the Joneses Get you Down

Other worries or more accurate items of interest and concern, are the upcoming holidays. I’m planning to join a bicycle trip from Bangkok to Saigon. I’m really looking forward to this. The trip runs along Cambodia and the ruins of Angkor Vath. Hopefully I’m finally going to make it this time and see the sites.

I’m also still waiting for the first African in outer space. There have been some Afro-American men and women on the various space shuttles but no native African has had a blast off from Lagos or Cape town so far.

In the meantime some more spaced out tracks.

89 Dexter Wansel - Life on Mars 1976
This has nothing to do with the David Bowie track. Dexter Wansel is a Philly keyboard player with some moderate success in the 70’s but his lasting legacy will be his contributions to the Gamble and Huff Philly Sound.

90 Rodney Trotter - Space Nigga' mid 70’s
This track pops up on a number of compilation albums these days. It’s a nice bit of proto-Newcleus electro in which Rodney Trooter [no, not the Only Fools and Horses character] talks of his band landing from the cosmos to wipe out use of that still troublesome ‘N’ word.

You might have noticed some changes on this site over the past few weeks. I’ve run an update on the looks and content. It became a bit more custom made. It’s not that difficult if you take the time and effort to get into all the features Blogspot has to offer.
About the content. I’ve added some extra pages to give some sense of direction to the various styles of music. This main page will stay the central topic but some items will get some sort of regathering on one of the following specific pages.

Black Gold Radio is, as the name already gives away, dedicated to everything Black. No written content here. Its basically just a place where I can leave a widget from Box to publicly stream all the Rare Grooves that I’ve been posting or that I’ve been planning to post because by now there’s already more in the Box map to which the widget links than what I’ve been able to write about and post.

Willie Hutch – Brothers Gonna Work It Out (The Mack 1973)

If you want to download a track, choose the option share (by right clicking the track) and there you can find a link to a shared folder from Box with the same name.

The Latin Section is dedicated to Everything Latin. I’ve had this one for quite a while now but finally got around to do something with it. Again no written content here but a roundup of various posted items on Out to Lunch and home made compilations like the one which I posted recently. Part 2 and 3 are on their way.

Joe Bataan – The Bottle

brasíl is dedicated to the brazilian way. Again this page will feature a roundup of various posted items on Out to Lunch and home made compilations like the ongoing alphabet of MPB / Musica Popular Brasileira. Ongoing because this alphabet is still being written today. Currently I’ve been posting C and D.

Bonde do Rolê – James Bonde

Time Goes By / Con Bolly is inspired by a trip to Barcelona and La Terremoto’s cult hit Time goes by Con Loli but in fact this page is dedicated to everything Bolly [Bollywood or Bombay], Kolly [Kollywood or Kodambakkam Madras] and yes… even Lolly [Lollywood or Lahore]. Not much written content over here but as always a roundup of various posted items on Out to Lunch and home made compilations.

Lover’s Paradise

Um Flash Electricó de alleman is dedicated to electronic music in various forms. No limits, German style, French style, Detroit or Scandinavian style … anything goes if I like it. It’s getting boring I know, but again not much written content over here but a roundup of various posted items on Out to Lunch and home made compilations like the one I posted before: Pop Is Not Dead but Just Smells Funny and String Delay.

Booka Shade – Vertigo (Henrik Schwarz remix)
Faze Action – Keep it Coming (Beats)
Olivier Giacomotto – Gail In The O (John Acquaviva & Damon Jee remix)

The Houston Helpdesk. I had a Myspace account for years but lost track of it until friends of mine got into it too and as result, I revamped the whole thing. I made a fansite out of it in order to keep track of all the bands and artist (dead or alive) that I like. It pretty handy if you want to stay up to date of current and upcoming concerts, clubgigs and record releases and the occasional chat. What the name is concerned, it just popped up somewhere on these pages. Some people though that it was a band name. Maybe I should give up my daytime job and become a fulltime inventor of band names.

And finally, last but not least Last Bongo in Belgium. I didn't make the name of this one up myself. It's an actual song title from the Incredible Bongo Band, yes the one from 'Apache' fame. Why they called it Last Bongo in Belgium? Beats me, how should I know. Maybe they we're thinking about Last Tango in Paris but for all I know, they could just as well have called it Last Bongo in Bulgaria or... in the Balkan or even better Last Bongo in the Congo. Maybe that's how they finally got to Belgium. Isn't that how we all eventually wind up in Belgium?
This page is dedicated to everything marked BEL and worthwhile even for people who are not from around these parts. This small spot on the globe has produced some fine and lasting contributions to mankind which have universal value, relevance and beauty. Being caught here, shouting all of this from the top, seemed the most atypical thing to do, since we are known to be rather unpatriotic about it. That’s why I tend do this.
What better native to start with than Tintin. It was only recently that we celebrated the 100th anniversary of Hergé. I like to draw a bit myself every once in while, that’s why I’m interested in cartoons, comics and graphic novels.
Most of the content on this page though, consists of music, mainly danceable stuff. I know that we‘re getting a kind of reputation in terms of music these days but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t anything worthwhile going on in the past.

In terms of dance music I guess it all started with Marc Moulin and his alter ego Placebo way back in the 70’s. He kept playing music over the years and stayed an seminal figure in the Belgian music scene up until now as producer, radio DJ and musician. He received worldwide recognition for his early blend of jazz and funk which predated trip hop and his band Telex which inspired early electro and techno. Other classics that will pop up are Front 242, the R&S label output,…

Water & Leather / Election Time

It's election time over here. On Sunday we're going to choose who's governing our affairs for the next couple of years.

So what do you fancy most...

O
some half naked men playin' with water in a nice funny featurefilm from a true musical Genius, Hermeto Pascoal with the appropiate Música da Lagoa... E maravilhoso.


O
Or some Itchy and Scratchy, just one guy wrapped in all sorts of leather features and paraphanilia



[frankly I don't know what this all means but who does...]

Rare Grooves a-go-go

' Ze magic word for tonight is… down right funky '

Tonights post is a very rare piece of 70’s disco funk for which the label rare groove seemed to be invented… or better it was a rare gem since Ubiquity Records re-released this album a couple of years ago. This self-entitled album from Tommy Stewart was originally released in 1976 and is best known for the essential party anthem Bump and Hustle Music but frankly looking back, that track is just a mere side dish. It’s now a puzzle to me why those UK DJ’s who rediscovered it in the 80’s only played this one track to death on the dancefloors and left the other ones untouched. This album has so much more to offer.

I picked it up in 2005 while going trough crates of newly or fairly new released vinyl – ubiquity is a good reference, it always has something worthwhile – because of the Bump and Hustle track but Gee, there really isn’t a thing as great and rewarding – well ok, I can actually think of some other things – as coming home with the loot, a stash of fine music only to discover on first listening that the rest of it is way much better than what you thought it would be. My mind was set on one or maybe two great songs and the rest as mere fillings, because I never heard much talk or a buzz about the rest of the album, only that one famous track. Songs as Get Off Your Seats, Make Happy Music and Riding High are among my most favourite pieces of 70’s funk.
Especially Riding High has everything a rare groove should have. A magnificent piece of slow but steady going symphonic funk, lots of strings and horns, only sparse but strong female vocals chanting the title of the song and plenty of layers of advanced instrumental interplay, all building a massive groove without necessarily finishing in a single climax. As if hearing a passing train. Hopping on to a groove that's going steady and still goes on way, way after you jump off.
It still sounds fresh today, some people state that this track could easily have been released in 1988 so close is it in style to early house music with it's soaring strings and strong female vocals and certainly all the short edgy hooks and vampish riffs.

The record was a relative flop on release which is hard to grasp. It’s as good or even better than any dance record released in those days.

Apart from the info in the interview further down, I can only ad here that trumpeter, pianist, arranger and composer Tommy Stewart was born on November 19th, 1939. His mother, a songwriter, vocalist and choir conductor, set him on a musical path at the age of 10. As a teenager, Stewart studied with the legendary Fess Whately, attended many fine schools and served as the leader of the well-known Alabama State Collegians. Stewart taught music as a band director while performing and arranging outside of class.
Tommy Stewart is always described as a quintessential musician. This description is evidenced by his impressive musical career, which has spanned over 40 years now. In 1964 he played with Fred Wesley and members of the 55th Army band. He wrote and composed for TV and played with Blue Note recording artist Duke Pearson. Stewart has worked as an arranger, producer, performer or writer for an impressive list of various artists in the field of Jazz, Soul, R&B, funk and disco, including Sonny Stitt, Joe Newman, John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Bobby Blue Band, Gladys Knight, Barry White, Wynton Marsalis, Loleatta Holloway, Isaac Hayes, Lou Rawls, Clarence Carter, Johnny Taylor, Major Lance, John Edwards, Eddie Kendricks, Erskine Hawkins, Luther Ingram, Millie Jackson, Flip Wilson, Roy Gaines, Tamiko Jones and many others.

In 1973 he arranged and composed a musical score called The Burning of Atlanta for Buddha Records, another rare collectible LP. However, it is the self-titled 1976 album, TOMMY STEWART that most people associate him with, mostly because of the song Bump And Hustle Music.

Tommy Stewart is the co-founder of the African-American Philharmonic Orchestra. He now stays busy playing jazz trumpet and is helping develop R&B acts. His regular live gigs are as the Tommy Stewart Orchestra and with Cleve Eaton and Friends. He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1988.

Interview from the Ubiquity Site

This is the first full-length LP and CD re-issue for Tommy Stewarts self-titled tough-to-find album. It’s a legend amongst collectors and DJs for the party anthem Bump And Hustle Music. That tune appears on many play lists because it is on so many bootlegs and compilations. Featuring a killer vocal hook by Hot Buttered Soul (Isaac Hayes backing singers) it’s a little known fact that this track almost did not appear on the original record, it was only an afterthought put to tape last minute when the band
thought they were a track short.

Recording began in Atlanta, Georgia at Sound Pit Recording Studios, and was finished in Memphis, Tennessee in 1976. This was the latter end of the rare groove era, which is reflected in the combination of funk with early disco style production. In fact, Stewart is often labelled as the innovator of disco-funk because of this album and his production on releases like Southside Connection and Sil Austin. In addition to Bump and Hustle Music tracks like Riding High and The Fulton County Line qualify the album as a classic and one that sits pretty next to the likes of releases by The Headhunters, Roy Ayers, and the Mighty Ryeders.

In his High School he was voted most musical by classmates at graduation time. Stewart taught music as a band director while performing and arranging outside of class.

Bump And Hustle Music was a last minute song, recorded on the spot, laughs Stewart. It was the one we expected would do least well. He adds. The band was packing up their instruments after the album recording session. We had a drink or two, kidded around for a while and then I came up with the bass line, he remembers humming the instantly catchy 3 or 4 notes. Everyone kicked-in ideas and we laid down the instrumental version based on my arrangement. I then took the instrumental to Ardent Studios in Memphis and recorded the vocals with Hot Buttered Soul.

The LP has a peach on the cover. Not because it is Stewarts favourite fruit. In fact it was purely a marketing gimmick that was intended to help album sales through the popular Peaches music chain. Unfortunately the label wasn’t able to capitalize on the gimmick and the album didn’t achieve instant notoriety.

I didn’t really hear any buzz on it until the 1980s. DJs in the UK had picked-up on it, I saw a review in their Blues and Soul magazine, I guess Bump and Hustle Music was quite a hit over there, says Stewart. Then when the 1990s rolled around I was able to use the Internet and find out that it was getting lots of plays all around the world!
In the meantime Stewart had kept himself busy working with Loleatta Holloway Salsoul Records diva, and John Edwards, a vocalist for the Spinners who had releases out on Ace Records.

I never expected this album or that song to become an anthem, admits Stewart. But I do hear the connection with dance music produced today. The main difference is new music is mostly made electronically. On Bump and Hustle Music we did it live, those are live strings and horns recorded on the spot.

82 Fulton County Line
83 Practice What You Preach
84 Bump And Hustle Music
85 Get Off Your Seats
86 Make Happy Music
87 Riding High