Sunday, July 31, 2011

Charlie Bucket -- Think Twice Mix

Howdy folks

So I have been co running a Promotional company called "Think Twice" for two years now with my business partner Jimmy "the lips" murphy.

We've had the pleasure of bringing some amazing artists over such as "Kurtis Blow" pictured with us.

I decided to put a mix together of the kind of music we spin at our friday club night at "The Manor". More on the party, hip hop vibe I hope you enjoy. cut and paste the URL below.

http://soundcloud.com/charlie-bucket/think-twice-mix-tape-charlie

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Seun Kuti moves that booty

Seun Kuti has embraced his family musical legacy, taking the lead from his father Fela & older brother Femi, producing a second album full of fire and fury. He is backed by The Eypyt '80, his father's last group and enlists Brian Eno and John Reynolds on production duties.

Interestingly when I was in Nigeria people didn't seem to rate him that highly and thought of him more as a 'Fela cover band'. The general consensus was that his brother the true keeper of the music as he had evolved and taken the music somewhere new, whereas Seun took a more traditional approach. I don't give a shit about any of that because I really dig a lot of Seun's stuff and can't wait to hear more as he becomes more comfortable in his own musical skin over the next few years.
Rise is from his second album 'From Africa With Fury' and he has posted it up for free!


Rise by Knitting Factory


Also check out this very cool interview with Seun by Wax Poetics TV

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Colombian heeeet


Just a little bit of Colombian latin heat for your weekend - Fruko Y Sus Tesos! That scoundrel Charlie Bucket will be going there in a few months so he better be copping me some nuggets...




Fruko Y Sus Tesos - El Preso (Colombia, Discos Fuentes 45, 1976) mediafire download

Spaticus Autisticus

Having inflicted upon myself a serious degree of self analysis I have come to the conclusion that I, like a great deal of the population it may appear, am mildly (mildly) autistic.

You know I used to work with these autistic kids and those motherfuckers were crazy as shit. Johnno used to eat cigarette butts off the ground and then sprint away with his hips bent forward at 90 degrees, his head staring at the ground, arms trailing behind like a blind super-ostrich.

Kevin was the 130 kg, 16 year old who loved to eat. No I mean loved to eat. He once escaped from his teachers, broke into the staff room and ate an entire 4L tub of ice-cream. He'd been gone no more than 5 minutes. Another time he scaled the 12ft fences and 'ran' to the nearest KFC. From there he jumped the counter, grabbed as much chicken he could stuff in a box and headed off down the Western Ring Road on foot. The cops pulled him soon enough but I pity the poor 15-yr old KFC employee who had to encounter this brute charging them, screaming like the proverbial autistic-kid-bumrushing-a-KFC and pounding his forehead with both fists like it was the only thing between him and his non-retardation. Oh yeah, sorry but I forgot to mention that if Kevin encountered any obstacle during the day, his first response was to beat against his forehead to the point where he had developed an obscenely prominent calluse in the middle of his forehead over the years. His side-on profile really did resemble that of one of Wile E. Coyote's stray boulder victim's.

Kane would call out the names of each street as you drove past them as he new them by name; your very own kiddie singsong GPS. He also used to steal my mix cassettes from the van (which I made in a vain effort to impress a girl) and tape over them with Craig 'Huggy' Huggins from Gold 104.3, who-ever the fuck he is (curse his soul).

Max farted blood into a doctors face once but we are going to have to get really, really high before I can let that one out (pun intended).

The thing is these kids didn't really get the consequences of what they were doing, they just did stuff. The world didn't exist outside of their head so they'd better make sure that crazy movie happening out there is nice and interesting. They just did things for themselves. Sometimes it kinda made sense, sometimes it really didn't. Maybe all we do is the same and hope that what we do doesn't result in anyone getting covered in poo and blood and please let that be all. I remember I met a lady who classified herself to me as 'a bit autistic' and she looked and sounded just like anyone else. Then one time she reached across me and grabbed a glass of water from my hand and started drinking it without hesitation before a cursory glace in my direction stopped her dead. She explained that she was sorry but she only realised that the water not for her to drink after my face looked shocked. She didn't recognise it as 'mine' but she was thirsty and it was water. She only knew it was 'mine' because when people look at her like that when she had a drink, that's what must have just happened.

There is a theory that we all fit somewhere on 'the autism spectrum'. I like that theory. If I'm thirsty why can't I drink that water? We're always working for ourselves anyway, just some of us can manage to do it while affecting less people negatively. Shit, do we ever do anything truly altruistically? Don't you just give money to charity to make yourself feel better? Is it empathy or the satisfying of guilt? Won't that even up the karma scales given I wear Nike and don't give a fuck about the kids that make them?

We're all on that spectrum somewhere.





Time to hear from the greatest spazmo of them all...


Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Spasticus Autisticus mediafire download


Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Reasons To Be Cheerful pt. 3 mediafire download





*Note: all the names have been changed for this story, obviously

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Quantic

Not wanting to state the obvious but how good is Quantic? One of the only contemporary musicians that is continually envolving and expanding his sound and slipping chameleon-like into whichever guise he chooses. Soul to cumbia to hip-hop to dub-step, he manages to do it all and do it all well. Everytime he releases something I almost underestimate it on first listen - it's good but everything he does is good and I've got plenty of his records. I kind of feel like that with James Brown, Curtis Mayfield and Roy Ayers records. But just as it is when I find a new one of their records, I listen again and the gold just sticks out proper and I have to get it. This is how I have invariably and most accidentally become a Quantic completist.



The recent 12" he did, 'Caliventura remixes', is just like that. Remixes from the 'Tradition In Transition' album by the likes of Cut Chemist, J-Boogie and Daedelus, I was a bit indifferent at first but it just keeps growing on me.
This one is a remix by DJ Day and I've been playing it all about town...

Quantic & His Combo Barbaro - Mas Pan (DJ Day remix) mediafire download


You also get a free download card with the vinyl that includes the instrumentals and a bonus, most excellent Jeremy Sole dub so go cop it




Quantic Y Su Conjunto Los Miticos Del Ritmo - Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang (Dr. Dre cover) by Cover Me

I'm still waiting for this one in the post but it sounds pretty cool; cumbia-style covers of Dre, Dilla, Outkast, et al. Sadly sold out all over the world so I hope you already got yourself one.


Tune into myself and Arks later today on 'The Breakdown' on PBS 106.7FM 3-5pm in Melbourne. We'll be playing all kinds of funk & funky business and you can listen live on the net at pbsfm.org.au/breakdown as well as go back and stream it back anytime in the future.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

A funky social-conciousness

Got a real nice slice of that 'social concious funk' that all the kiddies old people seem to be talking about these days. Coming outta Detroit, Michigan in the Mid Wes' US, Laurence Thomas is a man on a mission and he has an important message for us. Something about kids and pimps and some other dude chilling with a cigar. But seriously this is a real cool, laidback funk groove set against some tough fatback drums (open break at the start for the heads!) and it never hurts for a vocalist to be singing about something they are really feeling now does it?

Laurence Thomas - Why Young Kids Stray (Soul'o'Sonic 45 1974)

I will be playing this on my radio show tomorrow afternoon ('The Breakdown' on PBS 106.7FM 3-5pm in Melbourne) and if you wanna check it out it not only streams live but can be listened back to here...

pbsfm.org.au/breakdown

manchild out!

Ghostfunk

Holy crap. So I thought I was The King Of Shit starting up my little Sample-Nerd on the 23rd thing and then almost instantly the universe pulled me up like 'a-yo you missed one son'. Indeed I did universe, indeed I did...



Ghostfunk - 01 - Make It N.Y. by Max Tannone



This was from a project put together by that kid Max Tannone who did the very-much-on-point Mos Dub and Dub Kweli remixes. It's essentially Ghostface Killah remixes using samples from afro-funk and afrobeat records... MF genius I tells ya. He has also taken it upon himself to pull a serious big-dude move and put the whole thing up as a free download on Soundcloud. So why are you still reading my nonsense? Get over there and get you some dammit!

soundcloud.com/maxtannone/sets/ghostfunk-1

Sunday, July 10, 2011

LA BANDA DE LISANDRO - MARTA LA REINA

LA BANDA DE LISANDRO - MARTA LA REINA

This track is a Colombian cumbia from the 80's and is as deep as it gets.

Quantic has been rocking this for a minute and its a slow tempo, hypnotic cumbia much in the style of lito barrientes or michi sarmiento.

The Lp "Arrinconala" also contains a cover of "El Lobo" by "wganda kenya".

peep the DL below.


FAIR NICK STARS - ARRETE MAI PALE

FAIR NICK STARS - ARRETE MAI PALE


This jam is a caribbean club classic recently compiled on the sofrito tropical discotheque compilation. The Album is self titled, and this is the stand out track.

Don't know much about these guys other than this tune is banging. never fail on the tropical tip. Peep the DL below


Tuesday, July 5, 2011

WHAM BANG

WHAM BANG - EARTH AND SPACE


Okay gonna get super record nerdy here for this one. Wham bang were a Kraut rock fusion 3 piece from hamburg. This Lp ES cam out in 1979 on a private press.

This album has a real jazz funk twist and is littered with breaks. The combination of strong drums, funky bass and awesome fender piano and moog sounds make it a very funky affair but probably not everyones cup of tea.

The track "Earth and Space" is in my opinion the strongest joint on there. If not only for the awesome break intro.


peep the dl below