I Can Has Musics: Office Naps

Yeah, yeah, I know this is exactly a week late. My bad. Worth the wait, though...

Thanks to Booooooooof for recommending this gem. Office Naps promises "Fresh 45 rpm curios every Monday," but that tagline should have been modified when blogmaster DJ Little Danny went back to school at the beginning of this year, as he updates far less frequently now. However, even with less quantity, he's got quality by the crate load. And his academic pursuits - graduate study in audio archives and preservation - clearly ties in with the consuming passions of Office Naps.

DJ Little Danny says, "Thinking about music's place in the context of American post-War history is a big thing for me. I wanted to freely elaborate [ooh, split infinitive!] on music and, moreover, I wanted to do so online, where much discussion about records is either acutely anti-intellectual or mired in hopelessly cutesy collector talk."

Danny's discussion is fiercely anti-anti-intellectual and uncutesy. As a complete sucker for serious consideration of pop culture 'ephemera', this blog is right up my alley. Essays on various aspects of generic, geographic, thematic, etc, history are accompanied by three-song playlists illustrating the main points.

Everything on here sounds great and is accompanied by some fantastic essays, so check out all of it. Here's what I played on the show last week:

Del-Rays, "Night Prowl", from "Booker T. and Beyond"
Tony Martinez and His Mambo Combo, " Pharaoh's Curse", movie music from "Vibraphones, flutes and California Latin jazz"
Eden 'Nature Boy' Ahbez, "Tobago", from "The sea" (truly fascinating back story!)
The Other Four, "Once and For All Girl", from "12-strung"


PS. Booof recommends the sitar pop posts here and here.

I Can Has Musics: Flea Market Funk

*If you do nothing else, skip to the bottom of this post to nab the amazing Marsha Hunt track*

Flea Market Funk (tagline: "FUNK SOUL JAZZ REGGAE") provides the scratchy 45 awesomeness that can only be found through the most thorough digging of crates (well, and some Kool & the Gang). Not being a particular audiophile myself, I love it that so many people of impeccable taste (and more patience for flipping through bloody great stacks of records than me) are ripping old 45s and LPs for teh benefit of teh denizens of teh tubes.

And DJ Prestige certainly does a thorough job of it, with posts covering the artists and labels behind his chosen tracks, descriptions of just why he thinks the tracks are so damn awesome, and anecdotes about how he came to acquire the records or decided to post about them. Here's a representative example: his post on Jean Austin & the Choir's "Straight 'Em" (dig that 'fro!).

Unfortunately, the file-sharing service DJ Prestige uses is quite temperamental, with restrictions on downloads set by intricate formulas involving the time the tracks have been available and the number of downloads they've had. I think this is why I couldn't download the most recently-posted track, Chick Willis' "Mother Fuyer", even though all the other tracks I tried were available, and it had had less downloads than most. I'll keep an eye out though, 'cos I understand it'll unlock eventually and the description sure sounds tantalising. And that album cover, oh that album cover (see above).

Anyhoo, of the tracks that were available, I played:

Jean Austin & the Choir - Straight 'Em (great gospel)
Kool & the Gang - Funky Granny ("weaves a tale of a hot pant wearing Grandma")

and one of the bonus tracks you can access by following the download link to "Funky Granny" (Easter egg!). Download this one right now, it's absolutely fantastic:

Marsha Hunt - (Oh No! Not) The Beast Day (srsly, right now)

Finally, DJ Prestige has a whole swag of mixes and live sets available for your downloading pleasure. Go nuts!

I Can Has Musics: Pinglewood.com

This week's featured blog was a recommendation from sneaky ol' Luci. Pinglewood.com is light on background info, heavy on stacks of fresh tunes, vids, etc. A wide range of genres is covered, and it's still alty enough for Luci's demanding standards.

Check out a fantastic video for Fiasco's "Oh You Horny Monster".

And download tracks from Japan's Avalon, Young Jeezy (he's Michael Phelps' favourite rapper, doncha know?) as well as the original Billy Paul track he's working from, and - my pick of their recent posts - fantastic weirdness from Volcano!. For my money, that last one is probably the only real keeper from the tracks I downloaded, but Pinglewood has enough variety you're sure to find something to your own taste.

I Can Has Musics: Lost in Tyme

Tonight's featured blog on I Can Has Musics? was freak-fest Lost In Tyme, a site that specialises in posting out-of-print records that aren't otherwise available unless you happen to get your grubby paws on a secondhand vinyl copy. They've got over 2000 records up, which is totally amazing (and potentially very tme consuming). My selections from the goodies on offer were Jeremy & the Satyrs' self-titled 1968 album and a CD re-release of mid-sixties albums from the Bad Seeds and the Liberty Bell.

The Satyrs serve up a dose of psychedelic rock that is the sound of 1968 (the producer also worked with the Electric Flag and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band).

Jeremy & the Satyrs - In the World of Glass Teardrops
Jeremy & the Satyrs - The Do It

I was particularly excited to find the Bad Seeds album, as I've been dying to check the first Bad Seeds out since I saw them on a DVD of TV appearances/proto-music videos of mid-sixties garage groups. I still like Mr. Cave's group better, but this is hella awesome too.

The Bad Seeds - Taste of the Same
The Bad Seeds - I'm a King Bee

Let me know if I've got these postings wrong - it's my first time!

I Can Has Musics omnibus!

One of the main reasons I decided I could justify adding yet another weblog to the ridiculously crowded weblogosphere was that I thought it made sense to provide handy clickable 'hyper' links to the music blogs I feature on my Radio One Wednesday Drive feature 'I Can Has Musics'. However, since establishing the Honkytonk Lagoon I've actually been unable to host my Wednesday show for one reason after another. To celebrate getting back into it tonight (4-7pm, 91fm in Dunners or www.r1.co.nz elsewhere) I'm posting the best of the blogs I've already featured:

Soul Sides: Crate-digging awesomeness from Oliver Wang. Soul, latin, boogaloo, funk, etc. Links up for a limited time, and it's all gold, so check in regularly or subscribe through a reader. Who can argue with posts like "JIMMY MCGRIFF: GIANT OF THE ORGAN" or "DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR DESPERATE PLEASURES"?

Waxidermy: More crate-digging delights. Perhaps a wider range, with great categories like 'Field Recordings', 'Garage/Freakbeat', 'Incredibly Strange' 'Instructional/Educational', and perhaps my favourite, 'Kids/School Bands'. I think the way that this blog works is that the most recent entry includes downloadable tracks, all other posts have streaming versions, so you have to be on the ball.

Dr Forrest's Cheeze Factory: In these days of ever rising cheeze prices, it's reassuring to know it exists in such vast quantities on teh internetz for FREE! One of my best I Can Has Musics finds: a whole swag of different versions of "St. James Infirmary". Score! The site is appropriately kitschy and quite busy - looks similar to a lot of personal websites circa 1998. It took me a while to work out how to actually download stuff from here (hint: click the cheeze).

If It Rotates We Can Control It: More funky souly stuff, with a 'world' focus. While there's a handful of links to individual tracks you can download, it mainly provides downloads of host Alex Panther's radio shows. Unfortunately, while the music selections are amazing, his radio voice doesn't really live up to his hep selections or groovy name...

Mutant Sounds: Entire albums of obscure weirdness. Fantastic music accompanied by pix of brilliant album art.

Said the Gramophone: Generally speaking, lighter lovelier stuff with rather floral blurbs that you could call poetic or precious. I just picked up a new Jolie Holland track from here, which makes me very, very happy.