YOUR LOOKS BETRAY YOU

This is so up my alley for so many reasons. It's from Soul Sides, a blog by Oliver Wang (O Dub to some), that covers everything from soul, R & B, funk, Latin and and occasionally reggae. One genre he really knows is Latin, particularly boogaloo, so when he posts Latin stuff, and it's always good. This recent post has six cuts, three each from Alfredo Linares and the Lat-Teens. They're from a couple LPs that he says were his white whales (who can't relate to that?). So it's nice of him to share. All six are worth the trip, but as I'm a fan of oddballs, I had to direct you to the Lat-Teens' "Now You Know," a swinging number, vintage 1968, about smoking weed. (The must hear moment comes at 2:52, but listen to the whole thing to appreciate it.) Goes well with Thee Midniters "I Found A Peanut"

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
The Lat-Teens - Now You Know mp3 at Soul Sides
Thee Midnighters - I Found A Peanut mp3 at Api.ning.com
The Lat-Teens - Two more songs at Soul Sides
Alfredo Linares - Three songs at Soul Sides

VOICE BEATS RIFF

If you have a kid that picked up the guitar around 2003, you're probably sick of the riff. Around that time, two different sets of parents that I know told me that the White Stripes "Seven Nation Army" was basically the new "Smoke on the Water," meaning it had supplanted the Deep Purple song as the go-to "I just got a guitar, now I'm gonna rock" lick. (London area guitar students rated it the #19 lick, with "Smoke on the Water" holding down #1. But that was in 2008, when it was no longer being jammed down the ear canals of every adolescent MTV viewer.) Regardless, if you're in the mood for a cover with some interesting instrumentation and one hell of a singer, download Nostalgia 77's cover, featuring Alice Russell. Once Russell starts singing, the riff that once annoyed the hell out of you will become irrelevant.

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Nostalgia 77, featuring Alice Russell - Seven Nation Army mp3 at Soul Sides

SHAKE YOUR SHOULDERS, EVERYTHING IS FINE

Sometimes an record can be like an old friend. You become attached to it, lugging it from one apartment to another, never far from the top of the recent plays. Alton Ellis' "Sings Rock and Soul" is, for me, one such record. I don't remember when I bought it, but I do remember having it in 1982. Like a snapshot, I remember my friend Mark (AKA Dr. Marvelous, his self-given beach nickname) visiting me when I lived in San Francisco, reading the title "Alton Ellis Sings Rock and Sooouull!", with an emphasis on "soul" that I've murmured to myself just about every time I've played it ever since.

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Just a couple years ago, another friend, Ruth (who was also living in San Francisco back when I was), was visiting from her new home in Australia. I hadn't seen her in years and, because our decades-long friendship was dominated by a common love of music, I asked her what she wanted to hear. To my surprise, of all the music that we had shared over the years, she asked to hear, you guessed it, "Alton Ellis Sings Rock and Sooouull!"

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Alton Ellis passed away recently, and as this particular record has been with me for a long time and been the soundtrack for many memorable moments, I could not let the sad event pass without recommending that you begin your relationship with Alton Ellis and his music. The record referenced above, though not rock nor straight soul, represents the transition of ska into reggae, and is considered by many the start of rock steady. The song "Get Ready" (often referred to as "Rocksteady") gave the genre its name.

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Ellis' voice is soulfully smooth and comes through remarkably clear, considering that the overall recordings are primitively produced, charateristic of the era. To put it succinctly, Ellis had some of the best pipes in reggae, and even a crappy mix couldn't fuck 'em up.

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Alton Ellis - Rocksteady mp3, Dance Crasher mp3 + 3 more at the Sailor Jerry Blog

Alton Ellis bio/obituary and 3 more mp3s, also at the Sailor Jerry Blog

Alton Ellis - I'm Still in Love With You mp3 + 2 more at Soul Sides

Alton Ellis on MySpace (samples of his music, no downloads)

THIS SHOULD KEEP YOU BUSY

Right now is a really good time to be into African music. As Captain Planet (on Soul Sides) puts it, there is a "vast, continent-wide vinyl archeology [sic] dig that seems to be taking place." DJs, collectors and music scholars have fanned out, on vast record hunting missions, to find remaining copies of rare African afrobeat, funk, juju and highlife records, before they're gone for good. With varying motives, whether it's to discover, preserve, flaunt, profit or make people dance, the core they share is an obsession with the music. And there is an urgency. Until recent years, the relatively low global demand for African music placed so little value on the physical product, that the vinyl copies were being thrown out, treated as junk, and in some cases burned for fuel.

Where to start? Compilations seem to be coming out as fast as they can be packaged, usually accompanied by informative liner notes and exotic promo photos. And the fact there there's so much excellent music that has heretofore been unavailable on CD, the quality of the music has not yet suffered from the pace. As the compilations are released, scattered MP3's invariably show up on music blogs, as is the case with four cuts recently posted on SoulSides (downloading all four is highly recommended).

Voodoo Funk is a mind-blowing blog by Frank Gossner, a German DJ who retired from club life, moved to Africa, and devoted himself full-time to finding and preserving the endangered grooves of impossibly rare afrobeat and funk sides. His travels are chronicled and finds posted, some with the wonderfully primitive sleeves that scream other-worldly-ness. Much of the music is not available on CD, or on vinyl outside of Africa. Even without the music being posted, it's a fascinating read as he describes the lengths he will go, and the dangers of traveling long distances to remote areas with would-be hosts knowing full well that he's carrying a decent sized chunk of change. Take Me There Fast, a documentary about his mission, is a work in progress by Leigh Iacobucci, and the trailer can be found here.

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As rare as some African vinyl can be, some music never even gets pressed. Where financial constraints prevented the jump to record stardom, easily duplicated cassette tapes filled the void. That's where Awesome Tapes From Africa comes in. Just as the name implies, the blog hosts samples of tapes that are, by and large, awesome. Host Thursdayborn spent a year in Ghana, and has another blog documenting the Hiplife movement, a indigenized national music mixing contemporary hip hop and Ghanaian influences.

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If the unfamiliarity of African music puts you off, don't let it. It's high time to get down. .

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West Africa Overload: 4 MP3s at Soul Sides from four different comps
Fela Kuti - Open and Close, Zombie, (and 4 other MP3s) at Diddy Wah
Voodoo Funk
Take Me Away Fast - trailer
Take Me Away Fast - filmmaker Leigh Iacobucci's page
Awesome Tapes From Africa
The Hiplife Complex