POST-PUNK FUNK

Yesterday's post about the Post-Punk Junk film festival starting this week served as a bit of a kick in the pants for me to finally organize some of my own mp3s I've made off of my collection of '70s/'80s underground vinyl. Here's a CDs worth of mutated funk for New Wave dance floors:

Get The Funk Out, Punk (WeirdFunk USA)

Didn't have room for the Euro stuff; maybe a vol. 2 if anyone's interested?

1. Black Randy & The Metrosquad - Barefootin' On The Wicket Picket
2. Funktionairies - Kiss My Funky pt 1
3. The Waitresses - Wait Here, I'll Be Right Back (Son of Comb)
4. Lotus Lame and the Lame Flames - Bad Sex
5. Animal Things - Wanna Buy Some
6. Carmaig DeForest - Crack's No Worse Then The Fascist Threat
7. Baby Buddha - Then I Sleep
8. Funkapolitan - As The Time Goes By
9. The Soul Dads - Youre Fat (And I Like It)
10. Fela Johnson - They Call Me Fela
11. The Offs - Everyone's a Bigot
12. Cambridge Apostles - Cant Fight The Feeling
13. No Y Z - X Machine
14. Black Randy & The Metrosquad - Say It Loud -- I'm Black And I'm Proud
15. Rand Kennedy - Enorma Jones
16. John Sex - Bump And Grind It (Extended Mix)
17. Funktionairies - Kiss My Funky pt 2

Apart from legends like Black Randy and the commercially successful Waitresses, I don't know much about some of these obscurities - click on the artist name for whatever link I could find. But it's all rude, raucous funky fun, uninhibited, full of life...

IF DANIEL JOHNSTON WAS A RAPPER...

...he STILL wouldn't be as messed-up as Dan Bull, a 22-year-old self-described autistic, whose album "Safe" is so disturbing, it makes eminem sound like Doris Day. It's a mighty impressive debut, begging comparisons to The Streets, but if ya ax me, this dude's got much better flow. The music is similarly well-crafted.

It starts off fairly innocuous, with a wistful tale of summer, followed by a love song, and that's as happy as it gets - the lover spurns him, and he actually sounds like he's about to break down by the end of the song. From then on it's nothing but pain, alienation, loneliness, and dreams of oblivion to escape his torturous life. Happy New Year!

I don't get the "autistic" diagnosis, though. I thought autistics couldn't communicate? Dan Bull gets his thoughts across loud and clear. I hope it is a real mental health condition - otherwise, there'd be no excuse for a fucked-up lyric about "the day I die will be the greatest day since Sept. 11."

This tune is actually a catchy, musically up-beat, succinct (2 1/2 minute) rocker, if you don't mind lyrics that are along the lines of "mankind is doomed and we're all gonna die."

Dan Bull "Thistopia"

Listen to a lo-fi stream of all the songs here. Can someone in England please put a suicide watch on this guy?

UPDATE: Just got a note from the man himself, who clarifies: "I have a form of high-functioning autism (Asperger syndrome) that means I'm highly literate especially in contexts where I can plan out and write what I'm going to say - hence the wordiness of the album. It's social interaction, sensory overload and the resulting anxiety from these that I struggle with."

WELCOME TO THE TERRORISTDOME

Fun-da-Mental are a veteran rap group based in England whose 2006 song "Cookbook D.I.Y." was banned there because it gave explicit instructions on how to make a bomb. Bandleader Propa-Ghandi is a Pakistan-born Muslim. Though the song is open to interpretation as it is narrated from a number of points of view, Mr. 'Ghandi didn't come off too well when he was interviewed in the new Bill Maher film "Religulous." When Maher asked him about the fatwa against writer Salmon Rushdie, the rapper (aka Aki Nawaz) appeared to condone it. Is he a fun-da-mentalist?

So far as I know, this song is still banned in the UK, and has never been released in the US.

I always liked Fun-da-Mental's music. They were a kind of Indo-British Public Enemy, decrying social injustice and racism over Bollywood-sampled beats. And I dig the music of this tune. But, as I said to my wife, I don't know if the real Ghandi would appreciate having his name appropriated by a group who named their album (from whence comes this song) "All Is War (The Benefits Of G-Had)." She replied, "Yeah, but you liked "Cop Killer"!

Fun-Da-Mental: "Cookbook D.I.Y." (mp3)
Fun-Da-Mental: "Cookbook D.I.Y." (video) - As if the point could be missed, the lyrics/instructions are spelled out on the bottom of the screen.

Weird trivia: Aki Nawaz played drums in Southern Death Cult, who became one of my favorite guilty-pleasure bands, The Cult. I'll leave any "death cult" jokes up to you, dear readers...

WHO'S DOWN WITH LHC? (YEAH YOU KNOW ME)

From Scientific American's website: "You know a science experiment has arrived when a rap song extolling its virtues just hit YouTube. After 14 years, CERN, the European particle physics lab near Geneva, is getting ready to switch on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), designed to seek out new particles including the long-awaited Higgs boson and the possible source of dark matter as well as study the differences between matter and antimatter. The lab says it plans to send the first particles through the LHC's 17-mile- (27-kilometer-) diameter ring in early September and gradually bring it up to full speed over two months.

In honor of the impending start-up, Alpinekat, aka Kate McAlpine, a science writer for CERN, has produced a five-minute rap video starring herself and friends dancing in the bowels of the machine. McAlpine's rap, written during her 40-minute bus commute from Geneva to CERN, gives a rhythmic tour of the mysteries of modern physics and the workings of the LHC, noting that "the things that it discovers will rock you in the head."

Alpinekat: Large Hadron Rap (mp3)
Alpinekat: Large Hadron Rap (video)

Quite a funky tune, actually. This page also features the lyrics, and an acapella version for you remixers/masher-uppers.

This is actually not the first time CERN's musical side has been featured here. Two years ago, we wrote about Les Horribles Cernettes, "The First Band on the Web."

CURL ACTIVATE! Novelty Hip-Hop 12" Singles of the '80s

I was reading a story in the LA Times last week about a plane crash in Compton, and the photo of a witness to the crash caught my eye - what was that on his shirt? As you can see, it wasn't something suitable for a family newspaper. Good eye, Times editors!

I bet that guy would like these records. I sure do. They're pure low-budget fun, thoroughly funky and danceable, and blissfully uncool - not a cliche-spouting bling-bling gangsta in sight. Here's an album's worth of novelty/oddball hip-hop/funk 12" from the Jheri Curl era that I ripped from vinyl:

CURL ACTIVATE! (zippyshare link) 
CURL ACTIVATE! (divshare link)


1. Deryl With The Curl & DJ Curl Activator: "Curl Activate" (Jam-Kru Records) - samples George Clinton "Atomic Dog"
2. Akeem "The Dream" Olajuwon: "The Unbeatable Dream" (Las Vegas Records 1986) - Basketball star Olajuwon is saluted and contributes a few heavily-accented vocals; a shoe company is credited with co-executive producer - the lyrics mentions the shoe brand name three times; Dazz Band/Gap Band-type groove by the sports-obsessed Hurt 'em Bad, who is featured elsewhere in this collection with a football song. He also recorded a song about boxing, but that's if we ever get to volume two.
3. The Rappin Reverend Dr. C. Dexter Wise, III: "The Original Rap" (Fantasy Records, 1987) - Nice backing vox by The Heydons; Dr. Wise's brother Raymond is responsible for the one-guy-with-an-electronic-keyboard -and-drum-machine production. Holy hell, this is funny.
4. Chunky A: "Owww!" (MCA, 1989) - Comedian/talk show host Arsenio Hall's chubby musical alter ego. This spoof of Cameo's "Word Up" is really well produced, as opposed to the private-press primitivism of much of these other platters.
5. Chick Hearn: "Rap Around" (Outpost, 1986) - Basketball's greatest announcer gets sampled by Dave Bloom and Dave Gillerman, whoever they are. When I was a kid, I thought this record was genius.
6. Hurt Em Bad & The S.C. Band: "Monday Night Football" (Profile, 1982) - Zapp-like music, complete with vocoder.
7. Mac The Rapper: "What Is Love" (Shinola, 1987) - Featuring a computer's text-to-speech program, by Bob Mithoff, a soundtrack composer for the infamous Troma Film company ("Surf Nazis Must Die," "Class of Nuke 'em High," etc)
8. The Wilson Sisters & Speedy D: "The Magic Man" (Positive Music, 1988) - Yet another sports tribute, this one to Earvin "Magic" Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers, the dominant team of the '80s. Record has no info, but came with a bumper sticker.
9. Rich Little: "Presidents Rap" (Broadway, 1982) - No, the veteran comic impressionist isn't rapping - these are a few Reagan-inspired comedy sketches set over music that swipes from the Tom Tom Club's 1981 classic "Genius of Love."
10. The Coach: "Take It To The Hoop" (Zuma Jay, 1984) - Another basketball-inspired song from Los Angeles. As you may have figured by now, Laker fever swept LA in the '80s. Music by the unlikely Dennis Dragon of popular New Wave club band The Surf Punks. Wait, it gets even weirder - Dennis' brother Daryl, the "Captain" of '70s EZ listening superstars The Captain & Tennille plays synth!
11. Gerty Molzen: "Walk On The Wild Side" (10 Records, 1985) - The then-79 year old German screen star and opera/classical singer covers Lou Reed in a heavy accent, as an uncredited rapper throws in random quotes from Whodini's "Haunted House of Rock" and Grandmaster Flash's "New York, New York." Truly the reason why the letters "WTF" were invented. I saw her do this on "David Letterman" when this record came out. Instead of singing "doot da-doot" for when the colored girls sing, she sang something like "zabidy-doe, zabidy-doe." For a few shows later, Dave would ask his bandleader Paul Shaffer, "I'm in the mood for some Lou Reed. Can you play a little Lou Reed?" and they'd play a tape of Gerty singing "zabidy-doe, zabidy-doe." No, it's not on YouTube - I checked.
12. The Fat Boys: "Chillin With The Refrigerator" (Sutra, 1985) - Our final sports tribute, from one of the most popular rap groups of the '80s, The Fat Boys, featuring the late great Human Beat-Box. I was shocked to find that their albums are all out of print - they had four albums that went gold or platinum. Their subject here is football star William "The Refrigerator" Perry.
13. Bobby Jimmy & The Critters: "N.Y./LA Rappers" (Ruthless, 1988) - Another comedic rap group whose albums are sadly out of print; Bobby Jimmy (The Weird Al of rap) was Russ Parr, the morning dj on Compton's legendary KDAY - at the time, America's only 24/7 rap station. In fact, I'm sure that's were I first heard this. Produced by Dr. Dre for Eazy-E's label. Bobby Jimmy & The Critters had a string of popular rap parodies that were actually almost mainstream successes. The Ice T "Colors" parody on this one is particularly hilarious.

419 State of Mind

Section 419 in the Nigerian criminal code refers to internet scams, and a recent trend in that African nation's large hip-hop scene is songs about perpetrating such frauds. They are often told with the same bravado as American gangsta tales, although, of course, coming from a completely different cultural perspective.

Mode Nine is one such group, and their song "419 State of Mind pt2" offers a lot to chew on - it's funny (I like their British victim: "Cor blimey!"), informative, and serves as a warning to potential suckers even as it offers a morally questionable rationale for these crimes based on the old con man's excuse "You can't cheat an honest man." The effect is ultimately chilling. And I don't mean "chillin'."

Mode Nine: "419 State of Mind pt2"



Thanks to africa.visual_media.nyc

No, Not THAT Slick Rick

YouTube time: an absolutely horrific slice of '80s fake-rap performed by two hosts of the San Francisco teen show "Home Turf." It's got it all: Slick Rick's (don't worry, not Doug E. Fresh's partner) "Miami Vice" sportjacket-over-t-shirt look, public access-worthy special effects, arrhythmic rapping, corny lyrics. Fresh!

Lady Dominique and Slick Rick (1985)



Thanks again to Karl.

The Rap Canterbury Tales

Saturday's post about the giant squirrel rapping classic poetry reminded my friend Karl about seeing a live performance of a rap version of Chaucer's medieval masterpiece "Canterbury Tales." A quick inter-webular search revealed Baba Brinkman's site, a chap from Vancouver who has an M.A. in Medieval and Renaissance English Literature, and whose thesis "drew parallels between the worlds of rap music and literary poetry."

His album "The Rap Canterbury Tales" puts a modern hip-hop spin on the tales - if eminem had a graduate degree in classical literature it might sound a little something like this:

Baba Brinkman: The Miller's Tale - about a dirty Medieval gurrrl.
Baba Brinkman: The Pardoner's Tale - some drunks in a bar want to beat up Death; kinda reminds me of "Billy & Ted's Bogus Journey" (now there's a high-brow reference for ya).
Baba Brinkman: The Wife of Bath's Tale - another pretty interesting story about a knight who has to have sex with a scary old lady.

You must admit: not many hard-core MCs can claim to have a "Teaching Resources" page on their website.

M.C. NUTS

News item:

"A giant red squirrel named M.C. Nuts belts out a Hip Hop version of the Wordsworth poem, "Daffodils" in honour of its 200th anniversary.

The music video was created on behalf of the Cumbria Tourism board in Northern England and it was designed to appeal to the next generation of Lake District visitors.

William Wordsworth is considered by academics and writers alike as one of the greatest poets of all time; M.C. Nuts is hoping to ensure that the youth of today show their respect for the English poem in the future."

M.C. Nuts: "Daffodils"

But you have got to see the video to truly appreciate this - nothing says hip-hop like a guy in a giant squirrel costume, eh?

O.G.: ORIGINAL GAYS

Gangsta Fag

Well! That says it all, doesn't it? Countless rappers, inspired by NWA's "Straight Outta Compton," have filled their music with anger, violence, and curse words, but it's usually been directed at gays, not from them. Gangsta Fag's Twisted G, however, has come straight (well, as straight as he can be, har har) outta New York with music that goes after gay-bashers with a baseball bat. He has the requisite street credentials (prison time, etc), and claims he used to rob and rape crack dealers! That'll teach 'em.

From an interview on his website: "Q: Is it true that most of your fans are straight men?
Twisted G: Yeah that shits very true...Straight people find it disturbing, repulsive, and incredibly fucking hilarious. They love the shock factor and that's cool too! But if you find yourself singing all the lyrics and dancing to it around the house all the time, than yeah, you are a mutha fuckin fag and that's cool too baby!"

Gangsta Fag: "Run From The Faggots"


Thanks to Radio Clash

IF LIFE HANDS YOU A CRASHING COMPUTER...

...make lemonade. Or a song that samples the sounds of a computer crashing, as 99 folks did in a contest sponsored by Gizmodo, a "gadgets weblog." A fellow named LO2 crafted a funky break out of the sounds, adding his own funny nerd-core white rapping:

"Crizzash" - "...damn, that's where all my good porn was stizz-ashed!"

UPDATE: MC POTBELLY

After writing this about middle-aged insurance-salesman rapper MC Potbelly, Da Man himself sent me his home-recorded CD, chock full of brief-but-to-the-point songs boasting charmingly amateurish production, a rhyme flow like no-one else (except maybe The Shagg's drummer), and hysterical lyrics often detailing pimp life as he imagines it. Sometimes his lyrical concerns move beyond typical hip-hop subject matter and into metaphysical realms I don't quite grasp (genetic afterlife?)

MC Potbelly: "Sisters" - another of his pimpin' fantasies; so far beyond outrageous it's practically surreal.

He mails out free CDs to anyone who writes him, a move I highly recommend.

FUNK CRUEL

The most brutally raw music I've heard in ages is exploding from the ghettos of Rio De Janiero. Unlike most cities, where the rich are up in the hills, Rio's well-off are down on Ipanema and Copacabana Beaches, and the slum-dwellers have the great ocean views, and dance to a style so new, it doesn't have a definite name yet. Call it "baile funk," "funk do morro" ("of the hill,") or "carioca funk," it's all Miami-bass style hip-hop, hoarsley shouted (not really rapped) Portuguese, odd samples, and startlingly primitive production - this stuff isn't low-fi as an indie-rock pose, it really is garage-produced, sounding like vintage '80s floppy-disk samplers and eight (four?)-track recorders finally made it down to the favelas (slums). A lot of it sounds hissy, some tunes are over in less then a minute-and-a-half, songs abruptly cut off, and no-one sounds like they have any music training. Doesn't get any more punk then that, does it? Probably best enjoyed late at night, loud, while drunk.

Two collections were recently released in the States, "Rio Baile Funk: Favela Booty Beats," and "Slum Dunk Presents: Funk Carioca," but mostly this stuff is so far below the radar it's not even underground yet. The crucial Funky Do Morro website has been collecting recordings with names like "Funk Cruel" and "Funk Neurotica" by many often-anonymous baile funk artists:

"Sao Carlos" 1:27 of fun, from the collection "As Melhores do La"
"Funk Neurotica - track 10" throws in a bit of the Italian standard, the Tarantela. I don't know why.
"Rua Lucia Tabajara" This could make those "world-music" types who think all Brasilian music is 40-year-old Jobim-a-nova run screaming out of their Starbucks.

Tantan from Brasil provides us this link:
"Here's a video footage from a "baile funk" party in Rio de Janeiro. There's even a competition of the best bootie dancer of the night. And the prize is... yup, a book. hehehe"