Rick James - Street Songs

I'm currently awaiting the arrival of a pair of boots from Vegetarian Shoes in Brighton. I've tracked them to Melbourne, then Perth, and they are now 'On For Delivery' - a mangling of the Queen's (N.M.K!) English which I'm interpreting as them coming today. I could be wrong - I've been fooled before.

Playing this album has made me realise that I've gone in completely the wrong direction with my choice of footwear, though, and I am now envious of Rick James' thigh high red boots. They're very me.

The cover photo story seems to flow from back to front. On the back, James and a couple of women, of the kind James would have called 'freaks', but we nowadays call 'women', are apparently being patted down by a police officer. I say patted down, but the cop has his hand firmly on Rick's gluteal area. Rick is looking down at his hand as if to say, "You cheeky monkey, I know what you're up to - I'm Rick James, motherfucker, etc."

The front of the sleeve shows Rick leaning on a lamppost like a leather-clad George Formby, Rickenbacker bass at the ready. In the distance, the cop is leading the two women away in handcuffs. Honestly, fuck knows what's happening here. It's even more confusing if you read it from front cover to back.

This album contains some of James' best work Give It To Me Baby, Fire And Desire (with an epic performance by Teena Marie), and, ahem, Super Freak.

The lyric sheet contains the above warning.

P.S. Boots arrived!

#RickJames #StreetSongs #Music #Funk #TeenaMarie #Vinyl #NowPlaying #VegetarianShoes #georgeformby

Kimiko Kasai - We Can Fall In Love

I think I bought this record after hearing it on a Red Greg mix. My work at the time involved long periods sitting in front of a computer with headphones on with unfettered access to music and Discogs, which meant I bought shit-loads of records.

The title track on this album is glorious, uplifting, super-funky disco. Written by Kasai herself, it’s a ten. I wish she had written more, because the rest of the album is just MOR, jazz-lite standards, with a couple of arranger Richard Evans’s compositions. I couldn’t decide whether the low-point was the cod-reggae version of Leon Russell’s This Masquerade, or the lightly swinging version of God Bless The Child, although it’s all pretty bad. Incredibly, it’s produced by Teo Macero, who did the bulk of Miles Davis’s albums.

Kasai ended up marrying Richard Rudolph, which makes her Maya Rudolph’s step mother. According to the internet, being a step mom means she probably gets stuck in white goods a lot. What a strange world we live in.

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#Vinyl
#KamikoKazai
#WeCanFallInLove
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#Funk
#RedGreg
#Music

Rick James - The Flag

This was an album I really wanted when it came out in 1986, but didn’t buy...until this week.

It’s widely regarded as being James’ worst album, what with it being his final album for Gordy and him going through the end-of-contract motions, and his voice being ravaged by his enthusiastic cocaine use. But, you know what? It’s not too bad.

There are benefits to an album being considered generally shit. It was cheap and has never been played.

This was touted as his ‘political’ album. In order to reinforce this, the sleeve has James standing in front of an anarcho-syndicalist flag background, and on the rear and inner sleeves he’s holding little anacho-syndicalist flags.

Honestly, I had no idea what anarcho-syndicalism was in 1986 - I had yet to be fully radicalised by the woke leftists. James, however, was well ahead of the game: the album features such tracks as The State Is A Result Of Class Stratification, Established And Maintained In Order To Protect The Monopoly Of Capitalists Over The Economy, Direct Action, and the ballad Workers Must Prepare For The Overthrow Of Capitalism And The State.

It doesn’t really, more's the pity – it’s just more songs about 'freaks' and his cock. And one song about nuclear war.

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#TheFlag
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#AnarchoSyndicalism
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Sly & The Family Stone - Fresh

Whilst discussing bass playing the other day I named If You Want Me To Stay as my favourite bass playing on a tune ever: super-funky, understated but really clever. Unfortunately, I’d given Larry Graham the credit, but it turns out he’d been given the old heave-ho from the Family Stone just prior to this album being recorded and replaced by Rustee Allen. Perhaps it would have been a completely different track had Graham played on it. Incidentally, Rustee’s name is spelled incorrectly (Rusty) on the sleeve.

When I was about 18, my mate gave me this album. It had been given to him by a local smackhead in payment for giving them a lift and, as it had been robbed from someone’s car the previous evening, my mate didn’t want the bad karma and wanted to pass it on. I had no such karmic-qualms.

This is a really subdued funk album, which is surprising considering Stone had got stuck into the gak with considerable enthusiasm. You’d think it’d sound more coke-y.

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#Vinyl
#SlyandtheFamilyStone
#Fresh
#Funk
#RusteeAllen
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The Jimmy Castor Bunch - It's Just Begun

I grabbed a handful of Jimmy Castor Bunch LPs from a second hand record shop in the 80s, this one included, just because, by looking at the sleeves alone, you couldn’t go wrong. This, Castor’s second album from 1972, was the best of the bunch (geddit?)

I remember being delighted when, back in the old rare groove days of yore, probably my favourite DJ of all time, Nicky Holloway, used to open his set with It’s Just Begun. A MASSIVE tune.

The album later had its bones picked clean during the sampling years.

Listening to it today, as an entire piece of work, I’ve realised that it’s far more of a latin-tinged funk joint than I’d previously realised. It’s good, man.

An interesting quirk about this album is it is pressed on Dynaflex vinyl. This was RCA’s way of utilising less oil-thirsty vinyl during the oil crisis, by making a wafer-thin record. The record itself handles like Rolf Harris’s wobble board. The jury has been out for the past 53 years over the quality of these pressings, but to be fair, this copy is doing just fine.

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#ItsJustBegun
#Funk
#Music
#Dynaflex
#RCA