Thursday, July 21, 2022

BREAKING IT IN WITH THIS GUY


Man, it was a long three weeks. I think I mentioned that my car stereo took a shit. I had to bring it to a repair place and wait, and wait. Finally got it back. Loaded into the CD player before the deck died was a reggae compilation that I'd already listened to a couple times. So I brought a CD with me to listen to after the repaired rig was installed. I wanted something that would be good loud,  that would have a variety of sounds and would have a good groove. For whatever reason, the first thing that came to mind was Tony Allen's  No Accommodation For Lagos, a 1979 afrobeat classic with him fronting Fela's band, of which he was the drummer anyway. I've listened to the album a shitload, but it never sounded good. Because of shared walls and the fact that I'm no longer a drunk twenty-something asshole with a fuck the neighbors attitude, the only place I can let it rip with wall-shaking bass is on the road. So be it, I drove around aimlessly listening to Tony Allen bust the stereo cherry.


The cool thing is that I found a bunch of Allen's stuff for you. There's a few mp3s that have been posted before and a load of stuff that hasn't. One link is to 21 songs, of what vintage I'm not sure. The couple I checked were from 2003, but even his later stuff is baddass. There's also a link to a two hour (!) mix that is billed as Meet The Beat Of Tony Allen. If this all sounds really slipshod, let me cut to the chase. All Tony Allen music is great, all of it. It doesn't matter where you start. His beat is so earthbound, so organic that it feels like it's connecting to your pulse. Let the percussion, his and his accompanists, make you forget all about the fuckhead at work. Make like this light's out living room lunatic, boogie your ass off.

2 comments:

Steve D. said...

I don't know if this exactly counts, but I do not do a lot of motoring in the 1987 Chevrolet Sprint. On 1 July, I had to refuel it. My record (an old computer sprocket-fed printer form - stored inside the glove compartment) revealed I had not refuelled it since December 2020.
But when I decided to take it out for a long drive, I had to consider what could I put in its Fujitsu AM/FM/Cassette unit which I would not be seriously aggrieved if the cassette player decided to {instead} eat that cassette?
The cassette selected to potentially die for the cause was The Pahinui Bros. [Panini 1005-82098-4: 1992] You can't see everything on the J-Card when you buy something. It occurs that Jim Keltner, David Lindley, Ry Cooder, Dwight Yoakam, & Van Dyke Parks are on this album. There are a clutch of people thanked hereupon, including Walter Becker, whom I surmise was still living in Hawai'i then.
I am glad to pronounce that the cassette player, despite any lengthy idleness, did not eat this cassette.
What cassette have you which you would not necessarily aggrieve a player eating or otherwise rendering unplayable?

Tom G. said...

That, for me, would be a homemade mix CD. Those can be easily replaced. When I was car stereo-less I listen to a mini-boombox that has a cassette player and I was soooo tempted to listen to a tape of my brothers old demos, but decided not to because there's no back up copy. That sucker's not getting played until I make a digital copy!