we're not dead yet

Despite a lack of activity this past month, we do persist. We will return to a more irregularly scheduled program this June. Thank you for your patience.

WTF IS THIS?, Vol. 1

The other day, I heard a peculiar song, which made me think of another peculiar song, which made me long for the days when I might've found myself introduced to other peculiar songs. I don't hear many peculiar songs via traditional channels anymore, so I made a mixtape for my enjoyment and I'm sharing it with you. I hope you enjoy it. The tracklist is available on the Mixcloud page for this mix.

can u relate? no, really, can u?

It was probably about seven or eight years ago that I started hunting down all the versions of DJ Mink's Hey! Hey! Can U Relate. There was only one single release, and that's the version most people are concerned with, but there was more than that! Before being issued on a fledgling Warp Records as their fourth single, promos were pressed and distributed for potential releases on the FON and Ozone labels. The FON 12", or at least my copy, has peculiar issues, namely the beginning of each side starting a second or two into the song. Bad mastering and cutting? Some copies don't have that issue, so who really knows, but it has the acapella and an unreleased remix. The Ozone white label has four unique versions of Relate, including the remix from the FON 12" and ANOTHER unreleased remix! Now, neither of these remixes are the cream of the crop, being more minimal takes on the original, but they're nice to have all the same. Apart from the acapella version, all of the other mixes were eventually released, though there was still another unreleased 12", a Warp remix issue with the catalog number WAP 4R that got to the test pressing phase. Interestingly, that version contained the Deep Space Mix, which appeared on Warp's Pioneers of the Hypnotic Groove compilation (albeit uncredited as such), one of the unreleased remixes, and the Sunshine Dub Instrumental which appeared on the standard 12" Warp issued. What makes this stranger is that the B-Side of the 4R test pressing uses the same plate for the mastering of the retail B-Side, though they scratched out the R from the catalog number. I'd love to know exactly what changed between each of these releases, and what might have originally been intended for the Warp retail B-Side, but that information will probably never become available. That said, I'm posting one of the unreleased remixes for your listening pleasure. Again, it's not essential, but it's nice to have, and I still love this song so much. It's just fun in a way that a lot of hip-hop isn't anymore. I can imagine rocking this at a roller-skating rink and it going over fabulously. So go rock the Funky Mix of DJ Mink's Hey! Hey! Can U Relate and maybe break out some roller skates if the weather is okay where you are.

hearing voices

Sorry I haven't posted for a bit, life catches up with you sometimes and then you're trying to fend it off. That said, not much of a story behind today's post other than the well-known dub Erol Alkan did for Bloc Party's She's Hearing Voices wasn't the only version he did. A white-label 12" was issued with the dub and a full vocal version, which is excellent! No clue why the label didn't try and give this version a bigger release, as I think it's superior to the dub. I mean, it's Erol Alkan, the dub version is great, but when I hear a remix, I want a vocal version and then a dub version. You could argue that a lot of Alkan's remixes/reworks/edits are more about the instrumentals than the vocals, which is especially true with things like his Franz Ferdinand rework, but this version is so strong, there's really no valid reason to bury it on a limited release white-label 12". So, from my own copy, here's a rip of Bloc Party's She's Hearing Voices (Erol Alkan's Calling Your Name).

a poem about neil young vomiting

If that title isn't a hint, well, uh, sorry. If you did get the hint, you are now rewarded with a few Soul Coughing obscurities. The first are two tracks from the Ruby Vroom sessions back in 1994, and the second a rather obscure mix of Super Bon Bon from the one and only Tchad Blake. I've shared versions of the Ruby Vroom tracks elsewhere before, so maybe you've heard them, but probably not. As for Super Bon Bon, almost definitely not.

The quick and dirty of it is, a friend and I were involved in trying to get a Soul Coughing archival release project off the ground a few years ago, but issues with a specific member of the band put those goals on ice for the time being. We were far from ready for prime time, but we'd gotten new transfers of a bunch of live shows (some already in circulation but still significant upgrades), and a lot of unreleased or rare material. I'm not supposed to release any of it, which is a shame, but my friend and I agreed to release some of these Ruby Vroom rough mixes once or twice. Since then, I've re-done my initial transfer of the RV tape and put my own mastering touches on the tracks, and I think they came out pretty good for my thoroughly uneducated ass. The first is an extended version of Bus to Beelzebub, with an unused intro and an unfaded outro. The second is the first of two takes of Disseminated that were recorded during the RV sessions, though the song was re-recorded for Irresistible Bliss, so this version is completely unreleased. And finally, the version of Super Bon Bon seems to have been released on a Japanese issue of IB, though all I have to go on that is a vague reference on Discogs. It's super swampy and funky, though not dubby in the traditional, reggae sense. Still, calling it a "dub" version is probably the easiest description you could give it with some accuracy.

Click on the song titles in the last paragraph to check them out. Enjoy.

guess who?

Sorry, it's been a little while since my last post. Very busy this week with a funeral among other things.

If you followed my old site(s), you probably know I'm a big fan of cut-up hip-hop. In particular, I'm a devoted follower of Double Dee & Steinski (who have a wonderful Bandcamp page up that you should visit!) along with DJ Food/Strictly Kev, Coldcut, DJ Shadow and many more. I love the recontextualization of other people's work to make something new, so all the better known stuff, along with deep divers like John Oswald and Wobbly, tickle my fancy. That said, none of those guys are what got me interested in this kind of music. Oddly enough, it was the C&C Music Factory producers, David Cole and Robert Clivilles, and their work with Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam. They issued the first taste of their collaboration in 1991 with Let the Beat Hit 'Em, an almost entirely sample-based hip-hop track meant for the club as much as "boomin' systems" that doubled as a tribute to fallen king of the tape edits, Chep Nunez. The rest of their collaboration didn't sound anything like this, going more in a street-driven dance vibe that fit their works in the early nineties, but I still enjoyed it all. Nothing beat Let the Beat Hit 'Em though! I bought the cassette maxi-single and bugged-out to the extended remix and instrumental/dub versions constantly until I upgraded to the CD version. It's still a favorite and sits snug on my phone for when I need it.

Let the Beat Hit 'Em seems to be a bit of strange beast outside of my youthful recollections. I remember first hearing it on the Open House Party radio show and seeing the video at least once on MTV, but it never seemed to get much mainstream focus. The b-side of the original single was the so-called "5 Minute House Version" which I thought was dumb and kinda boring as it was basically a completely new track that, apart from the name, featured nothing from the original and was barely a song. Apparently, a further remix of this version became popular in the clubs and overseas. That later remix definitely improved on it, but I still couldn't understand the popularity of this version over the hip-hop track.

Time moves on, C&C Music Factory became a mostly forgotten joke, and Lisa Lisa disappeared, probably not making much money for her label which resulted in her getting dropped. She put out something on an indie label, but I never got to check it out. Still, the BEAT maintained, and while I like all her earlier singles, Let the Beat Hit 'Em is my jam. So when I found a promo 12" on Discogs that was reported to have two otherwise unavailable versions of Let the Beat Hit 'Em, I was intrigued. This wasn't a test-pressing, acetate or internal-use cassette, it was an officially issued promotional 12" that named-checked C&C but didn't announce Lisa and company, listing only Guess Who? and not even the song's name. I eventually purchased a copy and found two significantly different versions of the song, both seemingly earlier mixes with a lot of samples that were dropped from the officially released versions. I posted them on my Soundcloud, figuring they were fair game since they had never been released outside of a non-commercial 12", only to get the first of a three strikes warning. I was done with uploading anything to Soundcloud after that and just sat on my goods. Well, now that I have another site, I figured this was as good a time as any to share this 12" with the world again. You can get them here and here. They're still pretty awesome 28 years later!

I tried reaching out to Robert Clivilles a few times to see if I could get any background on the song and maybe these mixes, but I never heard back. No surprise. Still, this is one of those records I'd love to know more about. In the early days of digital editing, they probably spent a whole day in the studio adjusting the pitch and key of the samples and trying to get things sounding right before assembling the basic track. I can only imagine how long something like that could take and how maddening it could be. So, if anyone knows Robert C or Lisa Lisa and can get me in touch with them, drop me a line, though I'm assuming these are stories I'll probably never hear. :(

Please forgive me for the slightly downer outro note there. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

what's in a name? and other questions we don't care about.

Among other things I'm into, I've gotten interested in ripping cassette tapes. Most of the time I feel people don't make very good rips of cassettes, whereas ripping vinyl is something of an art form. I'm pretty good at ripping vinyl, though I make no claim to being an expert. I have my method and it works for me. But when it comes to tapes, I think I've got this figured out pretty damn well. Because of that, I've looked around and hunted for bizarre cassettes that I might find interesting. Some of the things I've gotten are:

A pre-release version of Beck's Odelay with a slightly different title, some songs with significantly different titles (Devil's Haircut was apparently named Electric Music in the Summer People at one point, unless it was some kind of internal label mistake), and uncleared samples. Some of those tracks will end up here later on.

A collection of rough mixes from the sessions for Soul Coughing's first album, with every song but one included, and a number of unreleased pieces. (Thanks, Mat!)

Rather finished sounding demos for George Clinton's second album for Prince's Paisley Park label. These could've probably been released as a finished album, though the versions later released are mostly superior.

There are quite a few other oddities I've located here and there, but one that really stands out is a "pre-mastering" tape of Lauryn Hill's Miseducation album. It was apparently made for someone at a German branch of Sony and features most of the album, minus a song or two, with a song or two that didn't make the album in their place. None of the interludes are present and a number of the song titles are completely different. It's pretty cool, though none of those things are revelations. The only really big find is a notably different version of Every Ghetto, Every City. The vocals appear to be the finished performance, but the backing track is quite different, with a sample of Miss Lauryn dropping a quip being looped throughout the track. I don't think this has ever leaked, and I'm not big into holding onto things forever unless I've been asked to, so here's a little bit of joy for you to jam to as we approach the weekend. If anyone really cares about the rest of the tape, I'm sure I can make it available for you to check out. For now though, let's keep it to this one track, labeled Welcome Back on the j-card. Enjoy.

Saul's Boutique, for the best in custom cassettes!

Some people have been very cool to me in the last few months and I finally got my hands on a lossless copy of the Paul's Boutique Show Vinyl for the aborted tour in 89/90. I did some work on it, removing some vinyl noise and patching some skips, and eventually made a cassette of it for my deck. Spoke to a friend about making some artwork and he suggested we make some professionally manufactured cassettes, so we did. I'm not selling them, as that would be illegal. FOR SHAME! But I am giving some copies to friends. Probably can't give everyone a copy though, so I'm sorry if I don't have enough to go around for the whole world. That said, I'd be happy to share the digital files, though I won't be posting a link here. If you'd like a download link, drop me a line at the email address at the top of the site. NOT MY OLD EMAIL! I still use that, but this needs to be kept separate.

I also want to give a huge shout out to Harvey Cliff for getting everything worked out! Below are two of the covers he made, both of which are blatantly awesome! He's available for hire to do killer art for your projects!

not afraid to die

I love a crazy remix. That Pizzy Yelliott one from the last post, it's nuts, though it helps that the cover is pretty nutty too. Still, it ups the insanity and runs around the house with scissors. I grew up always wanting to hear batshit crazy remixes of the music I loved, because I firmly believe the best remixes are the ones where the producers lay everything on the line. The disappointment of a generic remix is intense, so why not go all out when given the opportunity? I remember a friend and I being psyched for the release of remixes for Gnarls Barkley's Crazy way back when, only to find five ultra-generic house mixes that didn't need to exist, and probably never should have been created to begin with.

Now don't get me wrong, I understand the purpose of the remix in the eyes of a record label is to push their product in an environment that normally wouldn't be right for the music in question. With that knowledge, a basic club mix or two makes a lot of sense. Beyond one or two club mixes though, what else would you need? There's a promo for Lana Del Rey's National Anthem single with 16 different mixes, 3 done by Todd Terry. Who paid for that? There's a fucking Das Racist remix on it! That's amazing! Who would've thought to hire Das Racist to remix a Lana Del Rey song? How much coke was the A&R guy who paid them snorting at that moment? Apart from that Das Racist remix though, which is certifiably bonkers, all the other mixes are exactly what you think they are. In case you don't know what that is, they're basic club mixes borrowing a few vocals or speeding up the song and giving it a club beat. That's incredibly boring. If you want to see this ridiculous promo CD, just in case you don't believe me, click here.

With that said, the remix I'm posting here is for Janet Jackson's Black Cat. It's called the 3 Snaps Up 12" and was created by Vaughn Halyard. I've never heard of him before and he doesn't seem to have a lot of remix credits, but damn, he made a killer mix for Miss Janet! This mix is 30 years old and still awesome! So I praise you, Mr. Halyard, and I hope you'll check out this incredible remix of Black Cat, a perfect example of how you're supposed to remix a song!

high powered

Maybe it's because I was a teenager in the early nineties but I have a lot of affection sample-based hip-hop of that era. I guess it's differentiating between hip-hop that has producers making a groove from mostly live instrumentation, and having someone cutting and pasting a track together from well documented breaks and records. The deeper that collection of breaks and records goes, the more interesting it is for me, and in those pre-internet days, hearing samples you'd likely never find the origins of was mind-bending! Of course, now we have whosampled.com to ruin that, but I think it's a good kind of ruining. If we never got to hear those original records, maybe we wouldn't have fallen in love with the other sounds we've found?

Anyway, I'm posting a few random tracks today that don't have much tying them together, other than two are from the early nineties, and one is something weird I'd never have found if it weren't for the modern internet.

First up, I guess Dee Barnes is homeless? That's a shame, and I guess she's been trying to raise funds to get herself somewhere better. I don't know much about Dee, other than her hosting Pump It Up, a show I never got to watch with my living in the suburbs of Northeastern Ohio, and the aftermath of Dr. Dre's appearance on that show where he assaulted her. As I understand it, her career stalled afterward and Pump It Up was cancelled. Whatever happened, Dee was clearly talented and I hope she gets the support she needs. That said, I had no idea that Dee was part of a group in the early nineties, Body and Soul, which were affiliated with the Delicious Vinyl label and Def Jef. They only released one 12" and a few other tracks before disappearing. I guess it could be argued they weren't different enough from Salt 'n' Pepa, but by that rationale, how many rappers have just bit someone else's style and gotten sales off of it? Is that what happened? I don't know, but Body and Soul deserved a place in the hip-hop world. Check out High Powered, the b-side to the Dance to the Drummer's Beat 12".

Also of that era, and also holding a peculiar connection to Dre and N.W.A., is Candyman, probably best known for his sex rap, Knockin' Boots. I never loved it all that much, but it was popular so it got played and Candyman got to put out another record for Epic. This one, Playtime's Over, seemed cheesy and dated before it hit the shelves, and if you need evidence, look no further than Oneighundredskytalkpinelevenotwosevenine, the first single from the album. And yes, that's the proper name of the track. It's kinda fun, but also suffers from serious ego trippin'. Not to mention, who decided that was a good name for the track? I've seen promotional stuff that listed the song under variations of the name like 1-800-SKYTALK, but perhaps they had issues with the service having their number printed on nationally available records? The song was also probably hurt by SkyTalk changing their name to SkyPager shortly after the record came out. Didn't hurt A Tribe Called Quest, but they weren't giving anyone their personal number to leave messages. This was also a long time before Mike Jones decided to share his phone number with the world, something that doesn't seem to have been replicated since. Or maybe Candyman's song was just lame. You be the judge.

And here's one more, the sole release from Pizzy Yelliott, a Norwegian group affiliated with the Mungolian Jet Set, who did the remix featured here. If you've ever wanted to hear a Bob Marley cover where the entire thing is filled with helium and you're supposed to dance to jagged synth rhythms, the original Pizzy version fulfilled that desire, whereas the remix just got weird and then weirder. Seriously, I can't accurately describe how bizarre this acid house freak-out is or how much I love it, just check it out and get weird with it.

Nipponia Electronica

Ever seen this?



This was intended for release on the Dreamcast. It was supposedly finished but was cancelled and has never leaked. Apparently demos were pressed but they found a multiplayer bug on the discs and decided not to issue them. Maybe it cost too much to repress them, maybe they didn't have faith in the game, maybe the Dreamcast was all but dead. Whatever the reason, it didn't come out, and this seems to be most of what's left of it, barely a memory.

The gameplay isn't what interests me. I like the visuals, but they don't grab me either. It's the sound. The music and vocodered voice are arresting.

When I looked for more info on who may have done what related to Dee Dee Planet, I found a mention of Kentaro Hamasoto having been credited with SOUND. Whether that's music or just the sounds in the game, I don't know, but he has a very interesting YouTube channel named Nipponia Electronica, which you can visit by clicking on those very words. Lots of sound and video experiments, very cool stuff.

I don't know if I'll ever get to hear more of the music from Dee Dee Planet, or if Hamasoto is the person responsible for it's unique vibes, but I'll keep looking. For now, check out the above video of Dee Dee Planet and if you want more info about it, visit Unseen64. And definitely check out Nipponia Electronica, it's pretty damn cool.