If it all disappeared

I was reading Ed Vuillamy’s piece for Record Store Day in The Observer last week or even weeks ago – after Emma had finished the crossword [I might be able to recall the various Rephlex releases but I can’t do crosswords – that’s a real mental activity] and in it he details that his attempt to ship his record collection back to ‘dear old Blighty’ ended in disaster. The shipping company having failed to fill in the necessary paperwork pretty much gave the US customs department a right to destroy everyone of his 1600 records [and his books as well – but here we’re just talking about the music].

And in this piece of Sunday filler was an attempt to communicate the essential pull these pieces of plastic have on us. He was replenishing the stock – long player by long player – the same versions – the same labels – not swapping for a digital age – and obviously this chimed with the whole record store day vibe. And it set me [stinkin’] thinkin’ about all that vinyl upstairs, in no particular order and gathering dust – how I would feel if it simple disappeared one day. It’s not that I’d forget it – it would just be gone – not tangible – like the tunes on my phone.

There and not there.

In some ways those tunes up there [in the house – not in the ether] are not physical anymore – they exist in memories and snatches of sounds lodged [way] in my brain [way in my brain] and the act of playing them is lost in the day to day of living. If I am honest I even missed Record Store Day – I forgot amidst the Saturday playing out and the relevant madness of fatherhood – although I had made time for a stop in Reckless Records on Wednesday as I strolled back through Soho to Charing Cross. It was a glance at the racks and weighing up the odds of releasing some of my stock back to the river.

But I had those pangs – that only hoarders feel. It’s hard to give them up. Even the ones that I cringe at when I see a front cover and memories come flooding back of mis-timed dances and chances and unbearable angst and romances. Odd how plastic makes you feel. And part of me couldn’t imagine having to re-build it all – I guess I like to think that I’d just accept it and move on. But deep down I’d be gutted if I lost all my records.

So with it comes the question of what you would save [family accepted – and the cats]. That dilemma of saving the few over the many – hey – we’d all burn together. As Buffalo Springfield melted into LFO and dripped down over My Bloody Valentine and Denim. A whole heap of new genres emerging.

So today I am going to pick one. A simple tune to be plucked from the burning shack or the hands of the US customs. I have always had time for hip hop headz – for listening to beats and the bile that MCs be spittin’. And Gang Starr where clearly way up there in terms of their hip hop credibility – incendiary – you get me? And around the turn of the nineties through G&Ts and Acid Jazz emerged Guru’s take on the Blue Note era – this back to the beginning approach to reconstructing the songs – through risk and improvisation.

And Jazzamatazz at the time was seen to be a whole new way of mining the lineage – the joining of what was hip to the hop of the 90s. Hepcat callin’ from around tha way. On that album is a tune with him, D.C Lee and Ronny Jordan – by rights its call to an obsessive work ethic shouldn’t be a tune worth saving – but somehow it resonates and transports to days sat in The Honest Lawyer and smoke filled rooms and blissful dreams back in that steel town. Of flat fronted trousers and loafers. Loafers – bought on the cheap in Leeds – snakeskin tops with a patent feel, square toed and light. Ankle cut beige slacks a with a Ben Sherman short sleeve red plaid shirt topped with a wrangler press stud untreated denim jacket – no vents – fitted with no real room or movement – so no punches being thrown.

Just a simple expression. No more – no less.

And that’s what resides inside No Time to Play

The simple – honest rolling guitar ‘lick’ – kind of endlessly looping back in on itself – just gets me every time. It isn’t quite jazz – I found that hard going to be honest – but maybe when Paul and I started with Love Supreme – it was always going to be a struggle. Nowadays – I get Jelly Roll Morton and the gang – but Coltrane’s strains where a learning curve from the chord changes of the Stooges.

Guru offered that ‘in’ without the spin and for some reason reading that article brought me to saving this tune. It isn’t my favourite – I could most likely live without it. D.C Lee offering up the refrain that we’ve got to keep movin’ everyday. A call to do stuff – make things happen. I guess the physical existence of the thing means it carries some sentimental worth – an object. If I’d just downloaded the code I wouldn’t care so much. I could replace it with a click. However – I know it’s there – upstairs with the rest of the ‘collection’ – running the gamut from mainstream to downstream.

They’ve just released John Peel’s collection online - all ‘Nathan Barley’ and hyperlinked in THE SPACE – amidst home videos and talking heads. We all collect records here – they fascinate us for the sounds on them – not the notes we make about them. Although that’s what I’m doing here – pouring words over sounds. Ultimately we want the music to affect us and no matter how many words we chose to discuss and explain it – you know you just want to put the record on and make up your mind.

But as I said sometimes listening is not enough.

I wonder what John would have saved?

When it became embarrassing to talk of Funk

I am a heavy admirer of the super heavyweight sounds of the US funk scene – but somewhere over the years it became a cliché. A north London DJ route that’s all open sandwiches and jazz bars. I blame ACID JAZZ – I shouldn’t I know - but the whole music got wrapped in a soul boy styling when we should have just been sharing the tunes not trying to dig so deep in the crates that every record played was a one-off – a unique slice of soul that no one had heard but made you hip because it was rare – man – really rare.

I‘ll tell you what’s rare – Polar bears they’re rare.

Anyway, I once was a deejay – for a night sometimes – not as a career choice – dropping 45s of funk as we warmed up a room ready to go wild for the drum and bass – right in tha face at the end of an evening. And those nights were fuelled with our chemical beats for all those speed freak – northern soul stompers making way for the hardcore partiers in tha house. I loved finding a funk 45 that had been sampled and dropping those tunes – the essence of the hip hop scene – distilled in a bass line and a drum break that would make you stop in your tracks [which of course is ironic given we were playing tunes to make you dance]

And clearly I spent many years safe in the notion that I had the funk. But somewhere amidst the James Brown hollers and the loose booty of the family stone a barrier was built. So I’m trying to figure this out. You see I was trying to make a compilation the other day/ night and I’m the selector – so it’s about my choices – I control the flow – ya’ know – but I take a walk in the park and right by the Johnny Pate selection, WAR don’t get a look in, I’ve got reasons for not selecting Mary Jane Hooper and I’m [Humpty] dumping the Vibrettes.

Why is this?

It’s not that I don’t like the songs – it’s as if something has crept in beside it and sullied it and part of me feels it was the sudden rush to funk up the 90s and the noughties that killed it for me. Throughout those youthful years – before wrinkles and weight would make me weary – I would happen across a gem – a diamond – a belter of a tune. In a car boot cardboard box [Slaughter’s Big Rip Off soundtrack by James Brown for 50p], or stall in Greenwich [Richard and I carving out the cash to purchase Me and Baby Brother by WAR for four pound] or in a handful of scuffed and scratched records in SCOPE on the high street [Memphis Soul Stew on an Atlantic 4 track ep] or PDSA near Sainsbury’s in Beeston [that’s Nottingham folks - where I would purchase funk delight after funk delight as animal lovers offloaded vinyl by the cartload]

Mixed in with these finds would be the scraps of information picked up in reviews, interviews, or conversations with older folks, hip hop headz and soul boys. Scouring the sample clearance information on Three Feet High and Rising to see where that Potholes beat came from – which of course is the mighty Eric Burdon & War’s Magic Mountain – listen for yourself at whosampled.com – it’s easier now to find this and that.

No one was taping their records for the internet generation. Not that I’m against it – it’s wonderful to tap right in – drill on down to the sounds that inspire the underground that go overground for us all.

But the funk scraps we were fed were tantalising. I remember a wonderful friend of mine’s brother – Carl he was called, a true funk and soul aficionado – crafting columns for Blues and Soul, starting up his own magazine and building up a collection that rivalled any North London wannabe – this was real NORTHERN soul – brother. And he gave me a box of records – stuff he wasn’t hip to – for a small fee – early Mo’Wax, compilations, Acid Jazz, Grant Green and Mick Talbot’s solo album. But there on side two of a nondescript funk album was Jimmy James’ Root Down – soon to be sampled by The Beastie Boys – this huge ever pulsating tune from the centre of the Funkiverse – building from bass through drum roll and organ swipes – setting the funk up for the day ahead. I lived with these tunes – the market find of Black Ceasar in the Loire Valley while we camped – the Quest sample album picked up in Selectadisc on the way home from work – or the random 7inch from The Five Stairsteps [ok – I know it’s soul – but it’s a little funky – their bassist used to hang with the family stone – you’re bound to let that rub off on the fretboard] thrust into my hand by the owner of a lovely yet incredible messy store on Lee High Road [that’s Lewisham folks]

Mixed with that came tales of legendary films with Dolemite and Coffey Brown – or watching The Mack on video through a find from Chris – Carl’s brother and all round wonderful bloke – lost touch with him but fondly remembered in these parts - discovered in a discounted bin in a shop in Ridings [that’s Scunthorpe folks].

So what changed?

As I said I think the ubiquitous use by advertisers to sell us the carnal and exotic became demeaning – divorced the fury from the funk and rendered it solid – commodified through hot pants, knee socks and bubble blowing girls – forgetting the struggles that funk had endured. Rendered in vibrant colours to represent that 70s swing – they were burning records back then – they were burning lots of things back then – including the cross. And now it’s a photoshopped urban image with a day-glo vibe shifting tunes that spoke volumes about circumstance and opportunity. Check the Chi-Lites For God's Sake Give More Power To The People for want of anthem about being oppressed and depressed. But those off the peg fancy dress – let’s ridicule a style – appropriate the hate and laugh at the threads of sub cultures fighting for a corner kind of made me wary of the whole thang. Whilst Tarantino told us how hip he was in his blatant ripping off of film making by directors who were never given a chance with mainstream audiences.

Somewhere in all of that – I stopped listening and starting skipping the tunes.

It is not funk’s fault that it got sold out. I should stop being embarrassed and remember to listen more because when the bass and guitar and breaks connect – it makes me want to dance. And I have always loved dancing – you can’t do that to Brian Eno’s Music for Airports – you can do it to The Meters.