Archive for the ‘remixes’ Category

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Punch The Monkey! Lupin The 3rd Remixes, Part 1

Thursday, February 14th, 2013

Now for some real Japanese stuff.

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It seems to me that most anime/manga is fleeting. Many shows and books have intentionally short runs and are more like mini-series than full-fledged shows. But when a show or book takes off in Japan, it really takes off. Titles like Gundam, Macross, Dragonball, those aren’t just TV shows or comic books in Japan, they’re freaking institutions, multi-generational cultural milestones that seem to go on forever and ever.

While I find the enduring popularity of those series to be utterly fascinating, I can never seem to get into them myself.  Gundam and Macross are too complicated and self-serious for me to enjoy, while series like Naruto, Dragonball and One-Piece are about as aesthetically and thematically pleasing to me as an 18th century Russian novel or an British soap opera. There’s nothing wrong with them, they’re just not my thing.

The only long-running Japanese series that I have ever been able to get into at all is Lupin The 3rd, which started as a comic in 1967 before branching out into a TV series in 1971 and even a film series starting in 1978. That’s a lot of Lupin, and while my overall exposure to the the various forms of Lupin-related media have been relatively slim in comparison, I’ve loved just about everything I’ve been able to get my hands on.

I think the main reason that I like Lupin more than those other series is that it’s relatively self-contained. You can pop in any Lupin movie or TV series and figure out the basic gist within minutes, and as a whole it’s pretty light entertainment. While I’m sure Lupin has had his serious moments of the years, most of what I’ve seen has been incredibly easy-going and wacky, just the kind of thing I want to watch when I feel the need to escape for a bit. I also love the style of the series, and how its managed to maintain its 1960s aesthetic in one way or another to this day. (Of course, given my limited exposure to Lupin as a whole, I could just be talking out of my ass, but this is what I’ve noticed from the stuff I’ve seen.)

And it’s music is really dope. In the pantheon of anime soundtracks, the Lupin The 3rd main theme takes my second place spot as greatest of all time, right behind the jazzy perfection of Cowboy Bebop. Just like the series itself, I love its retro style, and how it’s managed to evolve over time to incorporate more modern musical movements. It’s a blast to listen to, and apparently I’m not the only person who thinks so, because holy shit there are a ton of remix compilations of the Lupin The 3rd theme music in Japan. I bought a couple of them (as well as some other Lupin-related vinyl) and I’ll be sharing them over the course of the next few days.

Up tonight are the tracks from the 1998 2LP set Punch The Monkey! Lupin The 3rd; The 30th Anniversary Remixes. I was going to do an artist by artist breakdown of the compilation, but I can hardly find anything about any of the people who worked on this record. When I do, it’s typically in Japanese, so that’s not much of a help. The record does have one name I recognize though, and that’s Yasuharu Konishi; the founder of Readymade Records and original member of Pizzicato Five, one of the only Japanese acts ever to make any kind of headway in the American music scene. His remix is pretty great, but then again, nearly all of these remixes are great. But if I had to pick a favorite, I would probably choose Escalator Team’s “Club Escape Mix” of the ’78 Theme, if for only its completely random sample from Mortal Kombat. How the hell did that happen?

Toshio Matsuura
Lupin The 3rd ’78 Theme From Lupin III (Walther P99 Mix)

Masanori Ikeda
Lupin The 3rd ’80 Theme From Lupin III (Latin Calcutta Mix)

Comoesta Yaegashi
Afro Rock Theme (Afro Rock Mix)

Escalator Team
Lupin The 3rd ’78 Theme From Lupin III (Club Escape Mix)

Fuzita Blender
Funny Walk In Old Fashion (Mori No Blend Mix)

Fantastic Plastic Machine
Theme From Lupin The 3rd (F.P.M.’s Reconstruction Mix)

Yasuharu Konishi
Theme From Lupin The 3rd 3 (The Readymade Yangu Oh! Oh! Mix)

Fantastic Explosion
Toward The Patrol Line (You & Fantastic Explosion Mix)

Sunaga T Experience
Lupin The 3rd ’80 (Sunaga T Experience 9849 Mix)

Jun Sasaki
Love Squall (Fujiko’s Love Mix)

Izuru Utsumi
Theme From Lupin The 3rd II (Bossa ’98 Mix)

 

Posted in Anime, Complete Albums, remixes, soundtrack | 1 Comment »

Play Video Games Be Happy. Also, listen to rad remixes of awesome tunes.

Monday, February 11th, 2013

Do you live in the greater Pittsburgh area?

Do you like video games?

Do you ever wish there was a place where you could buy vintage and import games at affordable prices and play classic arcade games on giant 99″ projection screens?

Then I got the place for you, the Penn Hills Game Exchange, an awesome video game store/arcade in, duh, Penn Hills, PA.

It’s a new store that a couple of my friends just opened, and it’s totally rad. You should check it out. Tell them I sent you. That way when I come in they can reward me with free candy.

Now that I got the plugging out of the way, here’s an incredibly eclectic assortment of electronic music.

Boom Boom Satellites
Push Eject (Howie B Remix)
4 A Moment of Silence
4 A Moment of Silence (Trapezoid Mix by Jack Dangers for Meat Beat Manifesto)
I plan on writing something a bit more in-depth on Boom Boom Satellites sometime in the future. For now I’ll just say that they’re one of my favorite Japanese bands, and I’ve been somewhat of a fan of theirs ever since I saw them open for Moby in 1999. However, it’s not easy to be a fan of the Boom Boom Satellites if you live in America, as almost none of their albums have been given a physical release in the states, and a few aren’t even available on Amazon MP3 or iTunes. That’s why I went all out when I was in Japan and I bought every single Boom Boom Satellites album I could find, giving myself a complete discography of their studio albums; one of their live releases, and a CD single for “Broken Mirror” which was apparently in a Gundam soundtrack (yo, the Japanese love Gundam, for real).

But these remixes are from none of the albums or singles I bought in Japan. Nope, I got these off of a 12″ single that I bought right here in Pittsburgh. Funny how that works.

The Future Sound of London
Snake Hips
The Future Sound of London have done a hell of a job of making sure all their 12″ singles, remixes and other assorted oddities are in-print and easy to snag on various digital services. And good on them, it’s nice to see a band actually understand that if you make  music available, people might buy it. Makes finding a track for me to share a real pain in the ass though. I bought a few FSOL singles in Japan, and this extended mix of “Snake Hips” is the only one that I am sure isn’t on a CD or digital release that you can find in America. The album version from ISDN is about five minutes long, but this version taken from a 12″ single is about eight and a half minutes long. Not surprisingly, it’s still weird.

The Folk Implosion
Natural One (Unkle Mix)
Natural One (Unkle Instrumental)
As the 2000s progress, I find myself more and more often identifying certain pop culture artifacts from the 1990s as “90s as shit.” My Saturday Morning Cartoons covers compilation: that’s 90s as shit. Space Jam: incredibly 90s as shit. Anything with Seth Green where you watch it now and go “holy shit, Seth Green is in this?”: also 90s as shit.

This right here, a song by Lou Barlow from a controversial Miramax film (Kids, a vomit of a film if there ever was one) that was in turn remixed by Unkle, one of the greatest flash-in-the-pan acts of the decade, and a poster child for mid-90s “electronica,” is some real  “90s and shit” shit. It’s also some really good shit, so check them out.

Posted in B-sides, Boom Boom Satellites, Future Sound Of London, remixes, The Folk Implosion | 4 Comments »

Slyvester Goes To Hollywood

Wednesday, February 6th, 2013

I’m on my new hosting service! But stuff is still kind of on fire. That’s why there’s no logo at the top of the screen. Hopefully that will get worked out soon. Double hopefully now that everything is moved I can finally start getting that other site in a state where I can unveil it to the masses. I think it’ll be relatively dope.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Two Tribes (Fluke Magimix)
Two Tribes (Olav Basoski’s Tiberium Power Mix)
Two Tribes (Rob Searle’s Club Dub)
While in Japan I picked up the Frankie Said, a  2CD compilation that assembles a rather bizarre combination of Frankie b-sides, remixes and outtakes. It’s an awesome collection, with multiple versions of classics like “Relax,” “Weclome The The Pleasuredome” and “Two Tribes.”

One of the most interesting things about the album is its sequence and editing. It has many interludes, 30-second to one-minute tracks that contain spoken word bits and song fragments. Many of them work to seamlessly segue into the next track. In doing so, it kind of transforms the hodgepodge collection into a concept album of sorts , and not just because parts of it sound like one big song mixed together, I mean thematically too. The compilation focuses on what Frankie knew best, hedonism, sex, drugs, and the constant threat of World War III. If that doesn’t have the makings of a concept album about life in the early 80s, I don’t know what does.

If you can find a copy of that 2CD set, I recommend picking it up. None of these remixes are from the said set though, they’re from a 2×12″ single that I also bought in Japan. The Fluke mix is the best of the bunch. And I love the fact that Fluke did a Frankie Goes To Hollywood remix.

Sylvester
Band Of Gold
Band Of Gold (Dub Mix)
Band Of Gold (Radio Edit)
Does the original version of “Band of Gold” by Freda Payne count as disco? It came out in 1970, which I guess predates disco by a few years, but it sure sounds like something that could have torn up a disco club in the 70s. It’s certainly one of my favorite pop songs of the decade, and has turned into a surprising recurring track here on The Lost Turntable. First I put up a cover by Modern Romance that was featured on the wonderfully horrid Party Party soundtrack. Then I shared it again years later, this time being Belinda Carlisle’s version. Those versions were good, but they can’t hold a candle to this one. I mean, c’mon, Sylvester? Patrick Cowley? Can’t top that.

Listening to this track got me on a disco kick, and I searched to see if Sylvester ever did a cover of my favorite classic disco track “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” Turns out he didn’t. However, I did find a cover of the song by his friend and fellow disco diva Jeanie Tracy. That cover has a remix called “A Sylvester Mix.” I don’t know if he had anything to do with the mix, or it if was a tribute to him and/or his boyfriend who had just succumbed to AIDS that year. “Don’t Leave Me This Way” was a rallying cry for the AIDS-affected gay community of the early 80s, so that wouldn’t surprise me. It’s awesome though, so now I have a new 12″ single to track down.

Posted in Fluke, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Patrick Cowley, remixes, Sylvester | 2 Comments »

I’m back! And I brought all the Japanese synth-pop with me!

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013

Okay, so here was my plan: Put a couple posts in the pipe while I was in China, and then once I got to Japan, occasionally blog about the stuff I was getting/feature some music from any out-of-print CDs I may have bought while in the country.

The first part of my plan worked perfectly, however, once in Japan I realized I failed to take into account HOW FUCKING AWESOME TOKYO IS. Sorry, but once I got there the last thing I wanted to do was sit in my hotel room and write about what I bought that day. I wanted to go out and play in the arcades; walk around Shibuya until midnight; go to crazy Japanese clubs; drink crazy Japanese drinks; and so much more! There’s so much to do and see in that city, and the longer I was there, the less I cared about getting back to my hotel in time to write a really good blog post. I just wanted to explore that city until my feet couldn’t take anymore, sleep, wake up, and repeat the whole process. So sorry if the blog kind of fell into a wasteland for a couple of weeks, but I was honestly having too much fun to really care.

But I’m back now! And holy shit do I have a lot to talk about! I plan on writing a couple of massive posts about my trip in the coming weeks/month, hopefully for my oft-delayed new site, but until then, I’m just going to start posting music that I picked up on the trip. I bought a ton of Western stuff, but expect to see a good portion of Japanese music as well, starting with tonight.

Yellow Magic Orchestra
Y.M.O. Mega-Mix
Firecracker (Remix)
Behind The Mask (Remix)
I wish I knew the reason why most of Yellow Magic Orchestra’s discography remains painfully hard to get in the states. Only one of their albums is available digitally on Amazon, and only a select few are available to buy via import. Is it a right’s issue? Or is Sony (I think that’s who own this stuff) just too stupid to give the stuff a proper release. I get why they haven’t bothered to put the CDs out here, but it would cost them next to nothing to get this stuff on digital download stores. What gives?

I didn’t want to wait to find out, so when I was in Japan I pretty much picked up a complete YMO discography across both CD and LP, and over the next few months I’m going to try and figure out what to post and what not to. Sure, nearly all of their albums aren’t available in the states, but I still think that most of them are worth tracking down and picking up, even at import prices. Maybe I’ll do some kind of “Greatest Hits” where I choose my favorite YMO tracks across the records I picked up. I think that’s the best and most ethical way to do things.

Tonight though I’m putting up a complete CD single, because even if the YMO albums proper ever make their way to American shores, I really doubt these remixes will. These are from a 1990 CD single simply called Y.M.O MEGA MIX that contains the self-titled medley track, and two additional YMO remixes.  The mega-mix is a massive 12 minute beast, containing snippets from seven different YMO tracks. None of them are massively re-worked, but it’s a great brief journey through some of YMO’s better tracks, including the excellent “Rydeen” and the super-catchy “Computer Game.”

I personally prefer the two additional remixes more than the mega-mix, especially the mix of “Behind The Mask” that extends the song by nearly two minutes and really lets the track’s excellent melody come to life.

It’s good to be back! And expect plenty of amazing stuff over the next few months! I bought so many records in Japan…

Posted in Complete Albums, remixes, Yellow Magic Orchestra | 3 Comments »

Dispatch From China: Some Like It Hot

Wednesday, December 26th, 2012

As I write this post I am sitting in my room, drinking whiskey and listening to Erasure. However when you read it I will be in motherfucking China, probably freezing my ass off on the Great Wall or exploring the city’s burgeoning punk and metal scenes (I am so stoked to hear Chinese punk, you have no idea). Oh the magic of “post on date.”

However, since I have just spent the past four hours writing various other words for various other articles, blog posts and emails, I am officially out of things to say! So this one will be brief. Good stuff though, at least I think so.

The Power Station
Some Like It Hot And The Heat Is On 
This version of The Power Station’s biggest hit is a megamix of sorts that combines the original album version of the track with “The Heat Is On,” the dub mix of the song. It’s good, but all I could think about while listening to it is the video for the song. It’s 80s as fuck.

The following things happen in this video:

  • A rotoscoped woman dances.
  • An extremely tall female model walks up to a space heater while Robert Palmer sings “feel the heat.
  • Plastic trees burst into flames!
  • The same model from before returns and shaves her already shaven armpit on camera.
  • Robert Palmer (dressed as a priest) sings to a statue of a bird.
  • Stock footage people clap.
  • The model puts on pink lipstick while a statue of a tiger watches.
  • Guitar solo by the dude from Duran Duran, he is clad in ammo belts and 80s metal hair.
  • Model puts a lamp up to her face when Palmer repeats the lyric “feel the heat”
  • Model sunbaths in a black light, with shaving cream on her face.
  • Rotoscoped lady re-appears from lightening!
  • Freeze frame!
  • Song ends.
  • PS: bolo ties.
  • PPS: Neon green eyeliner
  • PPPS: The 80s yo.

Erasure
Always (Extended Mix)
You guys! I almost went an entire year without posting an Erasure remix! What the fuck! If that happened I would have lost my fabulousness (and fuck you Chrome, that’s a word). This is from a 12″ single.

Oh god I just thought something: what if there is there is a club in China that plays vaguely gay synthpop? Oh god I hope there is. I’ll dance my ass off. Fuck punk bars, that’s where it’s at.

 

Posted in B-sides, Erasure, Power Station, remixes | 3 Comments »

A replica of a remix of a re-release.

Thursday, December 20th, 2012

Yeah, so I spelled “R2D2” wrong in my last post. Shut up. Did you record the 45, clean up the audio, rip it into MP3s, tag the MP3s, upload the MP3s to a server you paid for, and then write about the song?

Didn’t think so!

Seriously though, thanks to the person who pointed out the typo while not being a dick. That was nice.

This will be my last post before Christmas, so if you’re celebrating/recognized/being forced to observe Christmas, I hope you have a happy holiday. For the rest of you, I hope your Tuesday doesn’t suck. Additionally, this will be my last post before I embark on my trip to China and Japan! I have some posts lined up to go during my absence, and I hope to get a lot of stuff up here during my time in Tokyo. Hopefully you all will barely notice a break in my posts.

The train never stops at Lost Turntable. Notice how so many websites pretty much shut down during the Christmas/New Year’s break? Not this place! Not only am I going to continue to update the site during the break, but I’ll even be doing it while I’m on another fucking continent!

So what I’m basically saying is that everyone else is lazy. And I’m awesome.

And modest. So very modest.

 

Roni Size/Reprazent: Selections from Replica The Remix Album
Brown Paper Bag (Photek Remix)
Heroes (Origin Unknown Remix)
Share The Fall (Grooverider’s Jeep Style Mix)
New Forms (Krust’s Wide Screen Version)
Brown Paper Bag (Nobukazu Takemura Remix)
Heroes (Kruder Long Loose Bossa)
Down (Bel Air Remix)
New Forms (Roni Size Remix)
Western
Electricks

So, Roni Size is the person, right? And Reprazent is the group? But..Roni Size is also in Reprazent? Well then why not just call themselves Reprazent? Or maybe Reprazent featuring Roni Size? Why the extraneous slash? Motherfuckers have to be special, it’s like how Trent Reznor’s new band How To Destroy Angels is supposed to be spelled “How To Destroy Angels_” that’s with an underscore at the end. I love Trent Reznor and will pretty much defend to the death anything he does, but that’s dumb with a capital U (see, the wrong letter is capitalized, that’s how dumb it is).

Okay, I’m going off topic. Replica is, to date, Roni Size/Reprazent’s only compilation remix album. It was originally released in Japan in 1997, got a release in Australia the following year, and that was it. The album was never put out on disc in the US or the UK, and as of 2012 the album has yet to make appearance on digital marketplaces like Amazon or iTunes. You would think that with the massive success that Roni Size/Reprazent had with New Forms they would want to release this remix album in as many territories as possible, but whatever. Their lack of international regard is your gain today.

The only song from Replica that I am not sharing is the album closer “Electriks.” It’s not a remix, and it can also be found on most versions of New Forms, including the versions that can be bought on iTunes and Amazon’s MP3 store.

Speaking of versions of New Forms, holy shit there are a lot of versions of that record. First there was the original 2CD version that first came out in the UK.  Later on, the UK also got the first disc of the 2CD album as a single disc release.

Meanwhile in the US, we got the complete 2CD version that also included “Electricks” (which was not available on the original UK version). Then Japan got their own single CD version with an altered track listing that included the awesome rap single edit of “Brown Paper Bag.” And then there are the vinyl versions; a 4LP edition that is an approximation of the first CD, and a freakin’ 5LP edition that is based mostly on the second CD. And I haven’t even mentioned New Forms2, the remix/remake of the album that the group released in 2008.

So what I’m basically saying is that there needs to be Super Deluxe edition of New Forms that includes all of that shit. we got like four years before the album’s 20th anniversary  Let’s make this happen people.

 

Posted in remixes, Roni Size | 5 Comments »

More Madonna. More Hosting Woes.

Thursday, December 13th, 2012

So I guess I should probably elaborate on this?

Okay, I transferred my site to Nearly Free Speech (NFS) last month because I heard a lot of good things about them, most of which I detail in this post.

I resolved a lot of the financial issues with them, but now I’m finding that they aren’t all that cracked up to be when it comes to the technical side of things either.

I was going to try and be civil and rational with this, but I guess I’m not good at that. So I’m just going to come right out and say it.

NFS is apparently run by a group of paranoid idiots.

They’re servers are jacked up with so much excessive and redundant security systems that upgrading, modifying or altering anything on my end is nearly impossible. Under NFS’s default settings, I cannot upgrade WordPress, install plug-ins, remove plug-ins, modify anything, or even upload pictures. It’s a mess. And what makes it all worse is that there’s NOTHING on NFS”s site to explain this, and that there is NO free customer support to help users sort all of it out. If you have an account with NFS and you need help, your only option is to turn to their forums, which are staffed by both NFS employees and other users who try their best to help each other navigate the magical land of bullshit that is NFS’s server system. Pretty convenient for them huh? Make a system that no one can understand and then charge the users to help them!

Assholes.

And to make matters worse, this is effecting my upcoming site as well, so I have to postpone launching that AGAIN. I vow to get that shit up before I go to Tokyo, and it will happen. But I think it’s going to be close now.

Is NFS a cheap web hosting solution? I mean, maybe? It’s not for me. I’ve already had to go to a third hosting provider for my files, because NFS’s system is straight up broken if you want to host large files. It’s pathetic. But even without that taken into account, NFS isn’t really affordable or a good deal. Why?

Because your time is worth money. A blog without any large files would probably be able to be hosted on NFS for less than $40 a year. But you know what? My time is worth money too! And when I have to spend dozens of hours just figuring out how to do basic things that every other hosting provider on the planet does automatically, then any value that NFS’s low-cost hosting may have had is immediately lost.

Screw these mofos. I’m never using Nearly Free Speech again, and I really recommend that no one else does either. They are scam artists who exploit their convoluted, broken service for a quick buck from those who don’t know better. They suck.

Now let’s listen to Madonna.

Madonna
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Mix Alternate Ending)
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Spanglish Mix)
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Mix Edit)
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Dub Mix)
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Mix Instrumental Version)
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Spanglish Mix Edit)
Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (Extended Journey)
Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (Hot Mix Edit)
Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (Hot Mix Radio Edit)
Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (Edge Factor Dub)
Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (Early Morning Dub)
Express Yourself (Shep’s ‘spressin’ Himself Re-remix)
Oh god that’s a lot of Madonna what have I done? I have one more Madonna single I want to post sometime soon, but this should be the last of the Madonna for a while.

A year or two ago I had a post with some remixes of Madonna’s much-maligned “American Life,” where I dubbed it one of the worst songs of all time. That may have been a bit harsh, so I’m going to try to avoid such hyperbole tonight.

However, that being said…wow holy fuck do I hate “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.” I hate it. I hate it so much. Seriously. It’s like, unhealthy how much I hate this goddamn song. I hated the original version, I hate these remixes and I hate the fact that I even own the 12″ single, something I bought solely because I have to be a completist and own one version of every single Madonna 12″. Why? I don’t know, because I have weird problems. But hey, if you like this song, go nuts. Seriously, if you like this song, good for you! Have fun with these remixes! Download all of them and have yourself an Andrew Lloyd Weber dance party!

Just don’t invite me.

Now, “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore,” that’s a song that I can get behind. And it’s a song that I didn’t realize was a cover until about five minutes ago! Research! It’s a wonderful thing! Madonna’ first covered it for Like A Virgin, but it wasn’t released as a proper single until 1996, when it was re-recorded/reworked for inclusion on her ballads compilation Something to Remember. As I said before, I’m not a huge fan of Madonna’s ballads, but I do enjoy this one, and I especially like these more upbeat dance mixes that inject some life into the downbeat number. I got these mixes from a weird red label promo 12″ that I guess is kind of rare. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

And finally, “Express Yourself”! I don’t feel that I need to explain, extol or exclaim the virtues of this one. It’s a bona fide classic, and is probably in my top five list of Madonna songs, behind “Vogue” and before “Hung Up.”  This remix is by Shep Pettibone and it was included as a b-side to “Justify My Love.” It’s a pretty out there mix too. A lot of the elements from the original version are stripped out and about half of its 9 and a half minute running time is dedicated to an extended breakdown in the middle that features more stutters than a class full of kids with speech disorders (I can make that joke! I have a stutter and a speech impediment!) It’s really different and worth a listen. I hope you like it.

 

Posted in Madonna, remixes | 2 Comments »

Jive Presents In-House Volume 1

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012

I used to think Jive Records was dogshit, but that was just as much their fault as it was mine. Shit, you know what? It was way more their fault than it was mine.

They’re the ones who subjected the world to Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys and N-SYNC. As a teen in the late 90s it was nearly impossible to turn on MTV and not see their name at the bottom of some video I found atrocious by some vapid pop act who I thought was sucking the lifeforce out of popular music. They didn’t do much to improve their image for me in the 2000s either, signing artists like T-Pain, Eamon (fuck you Eamon, I don’t want you back), Joe, Nick Carter and probably dozens of other shitty pop acts I can’t even remember. In 2011, when it was announced that their parent label RCA Records would be dissolving the label and shutting it down, I didn’t shed a tear for their demise.

It wasn’t until recently that I discovered their important role in the history of new wave, hip-hop and dance music. They were the first label to new wave/big hair pioneers Flock Of Seagulls, and they were also the home to golden age rap legends Whodini. As their influence grew in the late 80s, they signed other important hip-hop artists like KRS-One, Schooly D and A Tribe Called Quest.

Digging through their discography on Discogs, it seemed to be around this time that the label also got into the habit of releasing compilations geared towards the clubs and the dance floor. At first these records were mostly hip-hop focused, but as time went on, the label eventually started to embrace the then new sound of house music.

I focused on one of these releases a few months ago, the awesome Jive Presents Acid House, but tonight I’m going to put the spotlight on the labels’ very first house compilation, 1988’s Jive Presents In-House Volume 1. While Jive had yet to attach the “acid” moniker to the music on this compilation, many of the tunes on the In-House album are clearly some of the earliest examples of the acid house sound making its way into the pop dance scene. It’s not all the way there yet, much of In-House lacks the edge and attitude of acid house that would come just a year later, but it’s clearly hear, and its fascinating to hear a genre really finding its footing, getting ready to claim the first half of the 90s for its own.

Enjoy, and if you have any insight as to other super-early acid house compilations or releases (aside from “Acid Trax,” I am aware) please let me know!

Samantha Fox
I Wanna Have Some Fun
While it’s not credited as such on the linear notes, this is a remix of Fox’s biggest hit, one that is double the length of the original and has an overall production feel that is less “poppy” and more pure dance. It’s still a silly, cute song though.

Culture Clash Dance Party
Love Fever (Fever Mix)
THIS SONG IS AWESOME AND I LOVE AND IT’S REALLY GOOD AND I WISH I KNEW MORE ABOUT CULTURE CLASH DANCE PARTY BECAUSE THEY SEEM PRETTY RAD.

She Rockers
Get Up On This
The She Rockers aren’t the world’s best rappers, but they got attitude that more than makes up for it. This shit sounds like an edgy Technotronic. I love it.

The Wee Papa Girls
We Know It
The worst named act in late 80s acid house is back! The Wee Papa Girls also appeared on the Jive Presents Acid House album, but this song is much better than the tune the contributed to that album. Expect some more from the Wee Papa Girls next week.

Children Of The Night
It’s a Trip (Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out)
Children Of The Night contributed one of my favorite tracks to the Jive Presents Acid House album, so it’s not surprising that they deliver another great banger here. This is the first track on the album that really sounds like acid house in both style and lyrical content (especially thanks to its parenthetical title). A great song, the best on the album if you ask me.

Adonis And The Acid Slaves
House Will Never Die
Adonis and the Acid Slaves is Michael A. Smith, a DJ/producer who first started releasing music in the late 80s. According to his Discogs page he has about a billion aliases, including Black Balls, Jack Frost, Percy Richblood and The Circle Jerks (no, not the punk band). He is also responsible for the mixes of “Love Fever” and “Get Up On This” that appear on this very album. Of all the tracks on this record, this is the one that sounds the most like acid house, complete with squelching “acid” sounds and constant references to acid slaves. It also has the best lyric of the album: “Do you want house? Or do you want bluegrass?”

If I saw this dude live back in the day I would have been the asshole to say “I want bluegrass!”

Posted in Adonis And The Acid Slaves, Children Of The Night, Complete Albums, Culture Class Dance Party, remixes, Samantha Fox, She Rockers, The Wee Papa Girls | 2 Comments »

Justify My Madonna

Monday, December 10th, 2012

I am definitely the only person on the planet who spent their Sunday afternoon crafting a semi-intelligent analysis of Madonna while watching footballs.

Madonna
Justify My Love (Orbit 12″ Mix)
Justify My Love (Hip Hop Mix)
Justify My Love (The Beast Within Mix)
Erotica (Kenlou B-Boy Mix)
Erotica (Jeep Beats)
Erotica (Madonna’s In My Jeep Mix)
Erotica (W0 12″)
Erotica (Underground Club Mix)
Erotica (Bass Hit Dub)
Remember when these songs were controversial? Oh, the 90s seem so long ago now.

I still maintain that both of these songs would have been far less controversial if they were, well, better. Neither “Erotica” nor “Justify My Love” are particularly great, especially compared to the stuff that Madonna was putting out just a couple years earlier (“Vogue,” “Like A Prayer,” “Express Yourself”). Shit, “Justify My Love” is barely a song, it’s more of a spoken word rant with some trip-hop grooves tacked on. I’ve always thought that if you want to challenge your audience with your message or lyrics, then the music that accompanies it better be damn good, or at least be catchy. As interesting, experimental and brave as these songs are musically, they completely fail as pop recordings. No one, not even Madonna, can challenge their audience both thematically and musically and expect to get away scott free, especially when the thematic challenges are as controversial as the ones found in these songs.

As uneven as these songs are, I will say that their minimal and sparse nature certainly help lend themselves to some interesting remixes. All of these mixes are pretty good, and some, like William Orbit’s “W0 12” mix of “Erotica” are great reworkings. Even if you’re like me and don’t really dig on the original versions, you should still check out these mixes, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Posted in Madonna, remixes | 4 Comments »

Prince! And Prince Related Material!

Friday, December 7th, 2012

Prince!

Prince
Somebody’s Somebody (Ultrafantasy Edit)
Somebody’s Somebody (Live Studio Mix)
“Somebody’s Somebody” is a lesser Prince work, released in 1996 as a single for the 3CD epic Emancipation. I think I listened to that album in its entirety at some point in my life, I’ll have to re-visit it sometimes. At three hours in length and with 36 tracks, I’m sure that there has to be a few winners hidden in there.

While I’m having a hard time hearing any major differences between the single version and the “Ultrafantasy Edit,” I am loving the “Live Studio Mix” of the song. It sounds way more organic and funky than the final version, no doubt due to it’s live nature. It also tones down the ridiculous overpowering bassline of the original. That shit is just too much, I prefer when a song lets you find its funk, instead of thrusting its funk upon you.

Did that make any sense? I’m tired.

Mazarati
Player’s Ball (Extended Version)
Mazarati was another in a long line of Prince “associate” acts, and they were a lesser one at that, at least in terms of popularity and critical acclaim. Mazarati’s self-titled debut album came out in 1986 to little fanfare or sales, despite Prince’s involvement as a producer and songwriter on a few tracks. The group soldiered on without Prince, releasing the follow-up Mazarati 2 in 1989, but it apparently had even less of an impact than their debut, and the group hasn’t released anything since (although apparently a new album remains in the works).

If the wiki for the band is to be believed, then probably the most interesting thing about Mazarati is the two songs they recorded but weren’t released as Mazarati songs. One was “Jerk Out,” which was re-recorded and turned into a top 10 hit by The Time. The other was “Kiss,” which Prince literally took, added his own vocal track and guitar solo, and put on his own album Parade (although they received credit on the release). Damn. I guess you run that risk when working with the Purple One.

I took this version of “Player’s Ball” from the 12″ single for the song. It’s out-of-print, of course, as is everything else by the group. I dig the tune though, so if anyone out there has a digital copy of the band’s first album that they are willing to share, let me know please. I’ll do you a solid in return.

Posted in Mazarati, Prince, remixes | 6 Comments »

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