IT'S ALL GOOD

Yesterday I was at the neighborhood hardware store. It's a mom and pop store that really caters to the community it serves. None of the bulk shit, none of the racks to the ceiling or tricked out shit you don't need. It's a hammer and nails type place. I was there for rope.

I got to the counter and recognized the two people behind it. I'd been in the store a month or so ago and they were playing some music from South America. I don't remember what it was exactly but when I mentioned that I liked it the conversation turned to international music in general; Brazilian, African, all over the place. Just a few days ago I'd been thinking about those two hardware store people. I knew I was going there for rope and I remembered that there was site I'd posted a ways back that was basically a spin-the-globe radio station finder. I tried every which way I could think of to find it on this, my own fucking blog, and failed. When I mentioned that to one of the hardware clerks, he did a quick web search and found the site in a milli-second. Yep: doh!!

On the globe, there are no borders or city names, just the shapes of the continents with green dots all over it. You'll probably need another map to reference where the cities from music rich regions are. I needed it to find Cape Verde and Lagos Nigeria, but Kingston Jamaica was easy enough to find. Once you know where the city is, just click among the closest green dots and it plays the station from that locale. When I got home I messed with it again, ended up on an armchair world tour for two hours. You should bookmark it so you don't have to go to the hardware store to find it again.

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Listen:
Radio Garden - Global radio access

GOT THE MEMO

Here's a nutty cat, Memo Rios, from Mexico City, who apparently did a fair amount of electro and rap, heavy on the covers. The one that sucked me in was "Techno Taco". It's like some cheesy Screamers Lite en Espanol. I didn't think it could be topped, or tainted, but I hadn't heard his covers of "Ice Ice Baby" and "Rappers Delight". Dude went from borderline oddball genius to ordinary oddball pretty quick. But the sparse production makes these interesting, as does the Spanish, and there are nice surprises, like the James Brown scream sample at :36 in "Memocotorreo". Whatever, I've gone this far. Do check the video, a cover of "Wild Thing".

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Listen:
Memo Rios - Techno Taco mp3 at Super Sonido
Memo Rios - Memocotorreo mp3 at Super Sonido Rappers Delight (?)
Memo Rios - Muy Delgada mp3 at Super Sonido Ice Ice Baby
Video:
Memo Rios -  Cosa Loca at YouTube Wild Thing

THE TRANSYLVANIA TWIST (SLIGHT RETURN)

Looking for something else, I ran into that image above. All I remembered was that the person's music videos were engrossing. So I tracked down the post it was from and checked the videos. I was completely sucked in, again. Here's the original post.:

It's not always about the sound of a particular song or the type of music that sucks you in. There are other factors you might take into consideration. When you're young you're often drawn to a band that looks cool, and wanting to seem as cool, you adopt their style as your own if only to have something rub off on you. Sometimes you're drawn to a particular band because you want to hang with the other people who follow them, what you perceive as a cool crowd. Sometimes you can't put your finger on why you are drawn to something.

In the case of Romanian singer Sandu Ciorba, the self anointed "King of Gipsy Music", I can tell you why I'm drawn to him. When I watch his videos I can't look away. As far as I can tell, Ciorba is a competent singer. I'm no Roma music expert, so I can't tell you if the music he makes is faithfully traditional or not. Because some of it has a beat similar to dance music, I would guess that he delves into updated Romanian jams. Actually, when I watch his videos, the music is almost secondary. I've sampled several, and from beginning to end every one is, well, total WTF. Not because there is anything alarming. It's just that they seem to have been made in a vacuum, without any awareness of more sophisticated videos or anything current, despite the fact that some of were made as late as 2015. This one was my introduction. After watching the whole thing, trying to make sense of it, I was sucked in.

It would be easy to make fun of Ciorba's videos. There is an abundance of women in short skirts and a handful of shirtless bruisers (that bring to mind Vladimir Putin in his vanity shots), and a lot of extras, dancing, flexing, shaking and gesturing this way or that. The dancing style is foreign to me, I'll leave it at that. Besides Ciorba and his cast of extras, another big star of some of the videos is the green screen, which seems to be the favorite tool of the director. That and the jagged editing. But, damn. Dude loves the green screen.

What of Ciorba himself? He has a bit of a gut, scraggly hair and in almost every video a wrinkled shirt that looks like it was pulled from the laundry pile, unbuttoned to mid-chest. He carries himself as if he was the Tom Jones of Romanian Gypsies. Who knows, he might be. Like I said, it might be tempting to make fun of his videos, but I prefer to look at them in a different way. Watch them and imagine that they came from a David Lynch film. David Lynch meets Benny Hill. Lettin' it fly. What I really dig about him, his videos, his cast of characters and the green screen is that they sucked me in with their undefinable weirdness. When that happens, I tip my hat, and I don't ask questions.

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Listen:
Sandu Ciorba - Pe Cimpoi mp3 at Internet Archive
Sandu Ciorba - Dalibomba mp3 at Internet Archive
Video:
Sandu Ciorba -  Lady at YouTube
Sandu Ciorba - Camau at YouTube
Sandu Ciorba - Istanbulu' at YouTube Green screen gold
Sandu Ciorba - Mamaliga Cu Malai at YouTube Jackpot!
NOTE: There are plenty more at YouTube, each one special in their own way.

FORGET SHIT FOR THIRTY FOUR MINUTES

I started to write something about King Sunny Adé but realized that it would take more time than I was willing to spend in front of a screen on a Friday night. So you're spared. Here's three random but totally awesome jams. No idea of the exact vintage, haven't looked, too preoccupied with the beat to bother. Three songs, thirty four minutes. What the hell you waiting for? Git.

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Listen:
King Sunny Adé and His African Beats - Ja Funm mp3 at Internet Archive
King Sunny Adé - Ase mp3 at Internet Archive
King Sunny Adé and His African Beats - Ki isu to diyan mp3 at Internet Archive

LIKE FINDING A TWENTY

These are awesome. They were treading water on a ten year old post. I can't believe the links are still good, as are others on the old post at Mixtape Riot.

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Ebo Taylor - Victory mp3 at Mixtape Riot
Ebo Taylor - Mizin mp3 at Mixtape Riot
Mad Man Jaga - Hankuri mp3 at Mixtape Riot
Bongos Ikwue & The Groovies -Otachikpopo at Mixtape Riot
Mongo Santamaria - O Mi Shango mp3 at Mixtape Riot
Son Palenque - Paleque Palenque at Mixtape Riot
Los Silvertones -Carmen at Mixtape Riot
Further digging:
Mixtape Riot
Read:
I Hate World Music by David Byrne, NY Times 10.3.99

DIG IT. A MESS OF FELA. (SLIGHT RETURN)

There's a reason for this repost. I was in a Fela mood and once I started grooving that outweighed hassling with doing something from scratch. Plus, Fela. Here's the original post:

Yesterday I was talking to a friend and the conversation turned to Fela Kuti. He'd never heard of him, so a thumbnail sketch was in order. I told him that Fela was the like the James Brown of Nigeria. He had spent some time in the U.S., back in the 1969, and while he was here he was exposed to the black power movement, the Black Panthers, activism and so forth. When he went back to Nigeria, he did so recharged. That's about as thumbnail as I could muster. (Check Wikipedia or elsewhere for a more detailed or accurate profile. I'm a little lazy tonight.)

I'd planned on just sending him links to some of the past posts about Fela here, but when I went back to check them, there were quite a few dead links. The cuts below are all the links that were still working. If you come here regularly, you've heard them, but the good news is that when I went looking for some that I hadn't posted I ran into a whole mess of 'em. Seriously, over seventy Fela cuts.

The songs below are the ones that have been posted before. The mother lode is at Internet Archive, available streaming and as downloads in multiple formats. These things don't stay around long, so if you dig Fela, don't blink.

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Listen:
Fela Kuti - Water No Get Enemy mp3 at Miss Trade
Fela Kuti - Shakara mp3 at Essentially Eclectic
Fela Kuti - Mistake mp3 at Soul Donuts
Fela Kuti - Lady mp3 at Tumblr
Fela Kuti & Africa 70 Organization - Colonial Mentality (1977) mp3 at Soul Safari
Fela Kuti & Africa 70 Organization - Monkey Banana (1976) mp3 at Soul Safari
Fela Kuti & Africa 70 Organization - Yellow Fever (1976) mp3 at Soul Safari
The big bag:
Fela Kuti - Saluting the Black President at Internet Archive 78 songs. NOTE: Once there, scroll down the page. In the right column, under "Download options" click on "VBR MP3 Files".

THE EVER EXPANDING GENRE OF WHAT?

You know you got it bad when you see the band name Hallelujah Chicken Run Band and it seems familiar. I don't know where I saw it before but I don't think it was the hosting site. I knew they were African, but that's about it. After hearing this song I did remember that my first impression, whenever it was, was that they didn't fit into any distinct African sub-category, Cool.

The hosting blog says it's an "exciting form of afrorock called chimurenga." Another blog says "Fusing traditional Shona music with Congolese rumba and Zimbabwean rock." Huh? I guess I ain't got it that bad.

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Listen:
Hallelujah Chicken Run Band - Tamba Zimba Navashe mp3 at For the Sake of the Song

FROM THE SECOND LAP DEPARTMENT

Ha! I was scrounging around old posts at Art Decade and came across a song by Juaneco Y Su Combo. I instantly recognized it but didn't remember from where. I did a web search and this post came up. I figured that if I had forgotten about it maybe you had too. Here it is as it was posted four years ago.:

A week ago, I had no idea what chicha was. I'd never really listened to Peruvian cumbia. This week it was crash course time. It started with Juaneco y Su Combo, courtesy of the ever cool Super Sonido (or was cool. They haven't updated in a while). From there it was a stop at Tiger Milk Records, and by then I was sucked in. I'm not going to bullshit here, or re-write a description that's already been written. I got nothin'. Just links to all of the cool stuff I've been digging. Listen to a few of these. It's good, out there in an organic, spacey, definitely-not-from-here sort of way. Shit, I can't aptly describe the sounds, let alone the feel. Read the thing at Perfect Sound Forever, that's a solid rundown. But man, get lost in this music. File under "stuff from way over there".

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Listen:
Juaneco y Su Combo - La Cumbia De Los Cuervos mp3 at Super Sonido
Los Vagos De Paramonga - La Muerte Del Lobo mp3 at Super Sonido
Manzanita y Su Conjunto - Asi Asi Asi at Super Sonido
Four more chicha bombs at Super Sonido
Tiger Milk Records - Streaming samples of their compilations
Visit:
Peruvian Chicha at Perfect Sound Forever

HAT SIZE? FOR WHAT?

If you know anything about the history of dub, you know who King Tubby is. He pretty much invented it. He was the first producer/engineer to fade shit out and fade shit back in. He was an electronic wizard, built his own systems, and so on. In his wake came Prince Jammy, Scientist and others. I mention those two because I ran into a mix that has all three of them. I also ran across that photo above, the first I've ever seen of Tubby with hair. That's a "stop the presses!" moment for some. Is for me.

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Listen:

King Tubby - First Generation mp3 at Internet Archive
Prince Jammy - Second Generation mp3 at Internet Archive
Scientist - Third Generation mp3 at Internet Archive
King Tubby - Tubby's New Fashion mp3 at Internet Archive
Prince Jammy - Prince Jammy On The Scene mp3 at Internet Archive
Scientist - Scientist At His Best mp3 at Internet Archive
King Tubby - Tubb's The Originator mp3 at Internet Archive
King Tubby - Original Stylee mp3 at Internet Archive

TWENTY EIGHT MINUTES OF THIS GUY

Among other things I like about Fela is his knack for lengthy jams, much closer in spirit to long songs by James Brown then any of those guitar oriented diddly-diddly things. While the playing is good, it's the groove that matters. Less "look at me" than "let's get down". I swung by Soul Safari tonight and in tribute on the occasion of Tony Allen's death there were a couple Fela cuts, two that I don't think I've posted before. That's good enough, particularly with the stay at home orders which provide the perfect opportunity to dance like nobody's watching. You ought to check out his posts too, one with an account of seeing Fela live back in 1983.

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Listen:
Fela Kuti - Yellow Fever mp3 at Soul Safari 1976
Fela Kuti and Africa 70 Organization - Colonial Mentality mp3 at Soul Safari 1977

HOT ASS LINK OF THE DAY

A buddy of mine just posted this link on Facebook and I know I'll be occupied for a while. It's an interactive globe that you can spin and zoom in on a country and click on an area to hear the radio stations of that area. Right now I'm listening to Alpha Boys School radio in Jamaica (the Alpha Boys School is where many reggae icons learned their trade). This is after listening to a station in Cuba and another in Paris. Yeah, this is a definite no brainer bookmark.

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Listen:
Radio Garden - Radio station broadcasts streaming from all over the world.

OBSCURE ETHIO JAZZ MIX OF THE WEEK

Ethio jazz in not a music I know much about. I know Hailu Mergia and I know Mulatu Astatke, a little. That's probably the equivalent of knowing only Elvis and Chuck Berry as rock 'n' roll. If I was in Ethiopia and all that I heard of rock 'n' roll was Elvis and Chuck Berry, do you know what I'd do to learn more about it? Listen to more of it. So here we go, a mix of Ethio jazz. It's great, some down-tempo mourning sort of stuff, and some good ol' fashioned Ethiopian whacked out shit. It'll keep you guessing while feeding you two hours of music you ain't never heard before.

That photo up there, that's Asnakech Worku who is not on this mix. I just dig the image. She is Ethiopian, and recorded with Hailu Mergia who is on the mix, so there's at least that connection. The mix is below. An mp4 download or streaming online. Blast it on Friday in your cubicle. Start your weekend way the fuck away from here.

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Listen:
In Ethio Mood Again - Mix by Nicky mp4 (via Mediafire) at My Passion For Ethiopian Music
In Ethio Mood Again - Mix by Nicky (streaming) at Mixcloud Song list here

MEANWHILE, EIGHT YEARS LATER...

Bookmarked in 2011. They're still online. And I don't remember ever listening to them. A couple awesome mixes, one Panamanian, the other international in scope. Vintage stuff, the good, bad and ugly, interesting enough to think "Fuck everything else. This has my full attention right now." So, I defer to this rascal DJ Papito.

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Listen:
DJ Papito - El Recolector: Panama Golden Nuggets at Soul Bonanza 46 minute mix, zip
DJ Papito - Out of Hell at Soul Bonanza 21 song mix, zip

TONIGHT AT THE STAPLES CENTER

Aw hell, it's bound to happen. Poking through sites on my route, I run into something that is dig-able, start looking for related stuff and before I know it there's some enough tidbits to qualify as a "Here you go, now get outta my hair" type post. Then I check the old posts and realize that most of the stuff I've just tracked down has been posted here before. Then would come the "fuggit" moment. Fuggit.

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Listen:
Ramsey Lewis - Why Am I Treated So Bad? mp3 at Groove Addict
Melodiya Ensemble - Why Am I Treated So Bad? mp3 at Soul Sides
Staple Singers - Why Am I Treated So Bad? (streaming) at YouTube
Staple Singers - I'll Take You There mp3 at The Skin Divers (?)
Staple Singers - Respect Yourself mp3 at Inventati (?)
Staple Singers - Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas mp3 at Tommy Gibson (?)

WHO DOSED MY LINK?

Oh fuck, this song is amazing. I don't know what the hell it is. The mix of oddball instruments swapping licks throughout. Surf type guitar, tablas, cheesy farfisa, what sounds like a Casio, fuzz guitar and accordion, plus assorted percussion instruments. Oh, and the backing vocals, yeesh, Kora Pandit only wishes. I've listened to it a half dozen times and still haven't gone one step further other than seeing that they're from Pakistan. Here goes. I'm going to savor this.

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Listen:
Tafo Brothers -  Bura Honda Juwariyan Da mp3 at Radio Diffusion Intl If link doesn't work, go there to get it.
Tafo Brothers -  Sun We Bilori Akh mp3 at Radio Diffusion Intl Go there to get it.

WE ONLY STOLE PARTS OF SONGS

There must have been something in the water in Peru in the sixties. No other explanation. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with Los Shains, a band that really seemed to like surf music and covers, and they had a knack for renaming some of them. It wasn't a case of a song title being lost in the translation, some of the changed titles make no sense at all. How does the Revels' "Church Key" become "The Bathroom of the Bird"? Is the gargling supposed be like "Surfin' Bird"? What the fuck? Even if the online translation doohickeys are off, there's no way they're that off. The real treat though is "The Monster" ("El Mounstro") which uses the Marketts' "Out of Limits" intro and then goes into the Novas' "The Crusher". I'm getting to the like these guys. Then I started liking the voice. It reminded me of the singer for Los Saicos. Total gravel. Guess what? Los Saicos, also Peruvian, also mid-sixties. Oh shit, here we go...

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Listen:
Los Shain's - El Baño del Pajaro mp3 at Internet Archive
The Revels - Church Key (streaming) at YouTube
The Trashmen - Surfin' Bird mp3 at Review Stalker

Los Shain's - El Mounstro mp3 at Internet Archive
The Marketts - Out of Limits (streaming) at YouTube
The Novas- The Crusher (streaming) at YouTube

MAYBE WE'RE COMING ON TOO STRONG.

Here's a band I never would have listened to had it not been for a listening station at a Tower Records, roughly twenty years ago. It wasn't the album above, it was the one after it, with no band photo, so I knew nothing about the band. All the lyrics were in Spanish, so I didn't know anything about them at all. I was looking for something different to listen to and it fit that requirement. It's contemporary tropical or some such shit. Actually a weird mix of Latin, disco, funk, synth-whatever with a little Parliament and Prince thrown in there.

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Listen:
Los Amigos Invisibles - G-String mp3 at Aurgasm
Los Amigos Invisibles - Ponerte en Quatro mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Los Amigos Invisibles - All Day Today mp3 at Solid Golderger
Los Amigos Invisibles - Funk Nuevo mp3 at Box.net
Los Amigos Invisibles - Una Disco Llena mp3 at Solid Golderger
Video:
Los Amigos Invisibles - Cuchi Cuchi at YouTube
Los Amigos Invisibles - Sexy at YouTube

A SOLID JAM FROM OUT OF NOWHERE

One of the reasons I still browse online is because every once in a while I run into something that I never would have gone looking for, something totally random. In this case, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou. Man, do they hit the spot tonight. Check that clip below. It's quite a fucking jam. Pretty good quality too, While checking it out, dig on the singer on the left, particularly in contrast to the singer on the right. Left singer has ants all up in his pants, high kicks and all that. Right singer is just chillin', grooving. The band is tight, the whole thing is worth seeing. Wait until you see the synth solo by the guitarist.

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Listen:
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - Se Tche We Djo Mon mp3 at 27 Leggies Go there to get it.
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - Zizi mp3 at 27 Leggies Ditto.

AND GRENADA TOO.

Here's a good old fashioned farfisa and fuzz oddball instrumental, from Grenada, by Los Relámpagos. The sleeve looked interesting so I gave it a shot and then proceeded to play it about eighty times, I live for oddball shit like this.

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Listen:
Los Relámpagos - Bwana mp3 at Super Sonido

OUT OF NOWHERE COMES THIS

I don't even know what I was looking for at YouTube. Something totally unrelated, that I do remember. I saw in the sidebar some band doing a Fela cover. Whatever, I clicked, knowing full well that there was a chance it would suck. It did not. It ruled.

Newen Afrobeat's cover of "Opposite People" is a trip. It starts out with a nice enough rhythm, and builds slowly. Wait, let's back up here. The drummer is bad ass. You'll see him at the very beginning but wait 'til he kicks in at about 1:26, followed by the horns. (Don't skip ahead. The build up is essential.) Throughout the live-in-studio video, he'll be shown every time there's some cool drum space to fill. And that's just the beginning of what makes this video, and this band so cool. They're from Chile. The lead singer on this particular track is a guest, Fela's oldest son, Seun Kuti. That's about all I know so far. Even their Bandcamp page is short on details. But I'm getting the feeling that I should have known about these guys way earlier. They've been around for eight years. Was someone going to tell me? Sheesh, I had to hear about it out on the YouTube.

Just remember, the drummer is badass.

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Listen:
Newen Afrobeat - Debut LP (streaming) at YouTube
Newen Afrobeat - Newen Plays Fela (streaming) at YouTube
Video:
Newen Afrobeat at Teatro San Joaquín at YouTube Full live set
Newen Afrobeat page at YouTube
Visit:
Newen Afrobeat - Bandcamp page
Fela posts - Mp3s and whatnot