I was down in Virginia over the weekend, southwest Virginia, Blacksburg — a seemingly/peculiarly tranquil place, for this weekend at least. A friend put me on to the new Ry Cooder albumI, Flathead:The Songs of Kash Buk and the Klowns. I had heard the song “Can I Smoke In Here?” on the radio several weeks back, so I was curious and wanted to hear the rest of the record. Apparently, this is the final installment in Ry Cooder’s “California trilogy” which began in 2005 with Chávez Ravine, an album about a Mexican-American community in Los Angeles that was demolished in the 1950s to build a stadium for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The second album, 2007’s My Name Is Buddy is also a “social-political concept album” which explores farm failures, the plight of laborers, strikes, hobos–and for all this, the stories are told from the perspective of a cat! I, Flathead is about drag-racing in 1960s southern California. The narratives here are told from the perspective of the unfortunate Kash Buk, a former drag racer turn Country music singer. Buk plays beat-up roadhouses with his band the Klowns.
At this moment, I can only listen to the album in segments, certain songs are just too Country. I like the bluesy fragments like the one below (and also the chicano and cumbia sounding pieces and some of the easy Western Swing joints)
Here’s a track from the excellent album by Mike Ladd, Negrophilia - inspired by a great book with the same title. Ladd sez “If you have not read this book yet read it today! After reading it, bizarre phenomena like Elvis, Eminem, Condoleeza Rice and Modernism make sense..”
Kubo - another alias of the man behind the Siqnature project. Twenty minutes of barefoot-global-afro-latin-kuduro-baile-bass bizness (or somn like that). Some of the tracks are already available on 12 thanks to Daniel Haaksman and Mann Recordings.
Alright, it’s been a good minute, but I’m still digging through, cleaning and learning how to rip these vinyls proper. I switched from Audacity to Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit) and the sound of the rips are notably better–sound quality still needs improvement though. Next step up is ProTools or Ableton Live, I guess.
Here’s a sweet little pleasurable song from a rather obscure American funk/R&B group. Members of this band used to be songwriters and musicians for Motown, as part of the in-house production team in the 1960s. This song appears on the B-side to their most popular hit “I Can Understand It” from 1972. It’s funny, but this tune is strange and familiar at the same time. It reminds me of a Maxi Priest song, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.
We are still in 1972, but let’s get away from Detroit and visit the Makossa Man, Manu Dibango in Yaounde. His album “O Boso” is recommended for warm, beautiful Summer nights, with smoke, steam and sweat –several counties in the tri-state area are under severe thunderstorm watch. Anyway, among all my parents 7 and 12″’s I was able to get my grubby hands on (and actually listened to), this is one of the most surprising, varied, and unique 12 inches.
“…we are playing a music whose unity has it’s roots deep in African earth, but whose harmony and construction reflect the influence of all the branches which have grown in the common three century old tree of music.” - M. Dibango, 1972
Adding a little zest and balance to that sublime track/post over at mudd up! There’s never enough Balla to go round. I’m not sure what this song is really about. It is a praise song for someone named Moussa Konate (who was a driver? an apprentice? I’ll have to consult my aunt or one of my cousins) but this doesn’t sound like a traditional praise song. This music was designed to blaze dance floors. What was Conakry nightlife like in 1968 or ‘71? What about Lagos? or Freetown? I have a bunch of 7 and 12 inches serving as windows, looking into the past and discovering a part of your parents that they’ve abandon a long time ago. Maybe abandon is a strong word. Either way, expect more of these in the future.
The Chief Commander of Juju Music Ebenezer Obey is also a praise-singer, combining the rich cultural and spiritual musical traditions of Yoruba people from the Ogun State in South-Western Nigeria with the excitement of Lagos highlife and Christian themes to create melodious, dance floor music and praise songs for the wealthy, famous and the powerful. Listen for the talking drums, which you can also hear these days in NYC underground/subway drummers.
