Posted on Dig Deep

Dig Deep: Eclipse – S/T – (1976)

Eclipse – Vision Interieure
Eclipse – Le Reve De John W.
Eclipse – Honey #36

Despite not having posted much of anything for four months, there was no chance that I was going to pass up the opportunity to post about a band called Eclipse on the same day that there was a total solar eclipse here in the Americas…Picked this LP up on my first visit (and perhaps still only visit, though I’ll change that in the Summer) to Sonido Del Valle in Boyle Heights. I’d gone to get a cumbia record they had posted about on IG (back when I had social media), but I always make sure to spend a fair amount of time in a new spot and love to hit up parts of the store that aren’t the specialty of the shop, just to see what oddities there might be.

With the cover you see above, and some barely legible computer like writing on the back, this record caught my eye. I’d originally thought this band was French, but then I noticed from the rather snazzy insert that almost all of the band members were originally from Montreal or Quebec (and oddly, at least to me, Manitoba), so French Canadian instead.

Thankfully Sonido Del Valle had some turntables for listening so I could drop the needle on the album instead of just taking a flyer. As you’ll hear, Eclipse definitely have some Dark Side era Floyd influences, and at the moment I was heavy in a moody, slow, psych kind of mood, so that style was music to my ears. Somewhat strangely, at least in comparison to the other tracks, “La Reve De John W.” is a straight funk track with a super long drum break at the start. It seems on later releases, the band ditched the Floyd-isms and just went straight disco. But here on this record you get both sides, without one eclipsing the other (sorry, had to do it!). I’d been meaning to post this one up for some time, but thankfully it’s here now, on the absolute most perfect day to post it. We’ll see if I can track down more eclipse related music by the time the next one, in 2026, comes around…

Posted on Mixes, Radio

Melting Pot Radio Hour: Top Digs Of 2023

{4-7-24: As you might have guessed, given the fact that I usually post up “Best Of” posts during the first week of the new year, 2024 hasn’t exactly gone according to plan…But the times they are a-changing, and I’m trying to ride some of this wild Eclipse energy into getting back into the swing of things…and that means a return of the “Melting Pot Radio Hour,” which of course has never once, ever, been only a single hour, in the very near future.}

Posted on Dig Deep

Best Of 2023: Top 5 LPs

{4-7-24: As you might have guessed, given the fact that I usually post up “Best Of” posts during the first week of the new year, 2024 hasn’t exactly gone according to plan…But the times they are a-changing, and I’m trying to ride some of this wild Eclipse energy into getting back into the swing of things…so, while there won’t be any 45s this year, I will break down why these 5 LPs made me oh so very happy last year, in the very near future.}

Posted on Fotos

Best Of 2023: Favorite Artwork From The Past Year’s “Digs”

{4-7-24: As you might have guessed, given the fact that I usually post up “Best Of” posts during the first week of the new year, 2024 hasn’t exactly gone according to plan…But the times they are a-changing, and I’m trying to ride some of this wild Eclipse energy into getting back into the swing of things…so expect many more covers than just Paulo here in the very near future.}

Posted on Dig Deep

Dig Deep: The Orient Express – S/T – Mainstream (1969)

The Orient Express- Cobra Fever
The Orient Express – Dance For Me
The Orient Express – Azaar

{Update 4-7-24…Maybe I should have been more specific about when I’d tell you about this record in 2024, but thems the breaks folks…I will have more words to share about this in the very near future.}

I am not nearly of sound mind or body at the moment, so I’ll tell y’all more about this album, the last one I bought in 2023, in the new year…Peace

Posted on Dig Deep

Dig Deep…For Matthew Africa: V/A – Wild Style Original Soundtrack – Animal (1983)

Grandmaster Caz and Chris Stein – Wild Style Theme Rap 1
Fantastic Freaks – Basketball Throwndown (with Cold Crush Bros) and At The Dixie
Double Trouble – At The Amphitheatre
Grand Wizard Theodore and Kevie Kev – Military Cut Scratch Mix
The Chief Rocka Busy Bee and DJ AJ – At The Amphitheatre

Today would have been Matthew Africa’s 52nd Birthday and every year around this time we pay tribute to Matthew, a singular influence on my musical sensibilities, here on Melting Pot. Given that this year celebrates 50 years since Kool DJ Herc set in motion Hip-Hop culture, it’s fitting to share this album.  As a DJs DJ, I wasn’t surprised at all to see that MKA had marked the label on both sides, just to make cueing up a cut just a little easier whenever he spun this one out.

Released only ten years after the birth of Hip-Hop, in 1983, and just a couple of years after the world came to know just what had been bubbling up in the Bronx and beyond for a decade.  Along with Style Wars, Wild Style holds a treasured space in the minds of most “true school” Hip-Hop heads, as many feel like its the best representation of what Hip-Hop was really like in the early years before it became more commercialized and there were only mixtapes to represent the culture.  To say that it’s a classic that all fans of Hip-Hop have to see is a understatement. 

Posting it today, I started thinking back to when I first saw the film, which must have been around 1997 at Daryl “G-Wiz” Felker’s spot, with a couple of other members of the WRAS’ Weekend Wrecking Crew also there. I thought I knew a thing or two about Hip-Hop history back then, but I’d never even heard of this film until Wiz played it.  I sat on the couch awestruck for the whole time, mouth agape, saying “how have I never seen this?” and “oh shit, THAT’S where that sample comes from?” on repeat, for pretty much the running time of the whole film. I can still remember Wiz exclaiming during the Fantastic Freak’s performance at The Dixie, “Damn, that’s when niggas had flows!” and being fully in agreement.  I can’t 100% be sure that by then I’d heard Jurassic 5, whose sound was so connected to this moment in Hip-Hop, but aside from them I can’t think of any post-Old School crew that could match the intricate back and forth in the performances from Fantastic Freaks and Cold Crush Bros. in the film.  Hearing these recordings in 2023, they still sounds revelatory to me in a way that much of what came after it just simply does not.

It was so hard to choose what songs to highlight off this legendary record, almost every song is a classic for those who know. I decided to share 5 songs, one for each decade Hip-Hop has existed.  Each one has been sampled multiple times, almost always in an iconic way.  So much amazing music…such an amazing period of time.  Happy to be able to share this one today on MKA’s bday, since this record came from his collection.  And in the sharing, Matthew Africa lives forever.  Peace and Bright Moments

Posted on Dig Deep

Dig Deep: Raymond Guiot – Jazz Baroque Quintet – Tele Music (1970)

Jazz Baroque Quintet – Princess Mary Ellen
Jazz Baroque Quintet – Le Tambourin
Jazz Baroque Quintet – Les Petit Moulins A Vent

Though I’ve been a collector for close to 30 years now, I’ve never really delved too far into the world of Library records. I’ve featured a few choice ones here, but it’s a very small section of my overall collection and probably 90% of it I’ve bought post 2020. It’s always daunting to venture outside of your comfort zone into new territories, but I think the main thing that stopped me from really digging deep into these types of records is that I often find that the albums themselves rarely warrant the prices, especially when so many of the songs are brief, sometimes only a minute long. Additionally, the incidental nature tied to the purpose of these records, with music designed to be in commercials or in station breaks, etc., means that there isn’t generally a whole lot of listenability to the full album. None of those shortcomings are the case with this lovely record, generally listed under French flutist Raymond Guiot’s discography.

In fact, since this record has become part of my collection, picked up from one of Cool Chris of Groove Merchant’s Rappcats sales last year, it’s become one of the albums that’s spent the most quality time on my turntables. Start to finish it is a thoroughly enjoyable experience, as Guiot and his jazzy crew (featuring Bernard Lubat, who will have an album of his own featured here shortly) make the most of compositions from the Baroque era. And, in true library record fashion, there’s even a track that’s just begging to be sampled by folks, the ultra-groovy “Princess Mary Ellen.”

After a bit of digital digging, I discovered there was also an earlier album, from 1968, first released on the UK Library outfit Audio and then also on Tele Music, called “Scarlatti Sounds,” with the same group plus a similar sound, that arrived to my casita this week and it’s also quite lovely. It’s highly possible I’ll spend many a weekend afternoon dropping the needle on both of the albums, and if you track them down, I bet you will as well.

Happy Hunting,

Michael

Posted on Ephemera

Jed Gould’s Freaky LACA Perv

Jed Gould – LACA Perv

As any one who has ever been to Groove Merchant knows, if Cool Chris puts a label on the cover to highlight a song, you should always check out that song. This collection from 1976, created by LA radio station KWST (which later on would become Power 106) as a fundraiser for public radio, features a number of LA bands that seemingly never amounted to much, and whose music I frankly don’t find particularly noteworthy…Except that is for this song, which is definitely appealing to these Hip-Hop ears, and was the brainchild of then 20 year old, Jed Gould.

While none of the others on this “locals only” collection seem to have made a name for themselves, Jed Gould is perhaps better known as Jed The Fish, the afternoon drive time host for 30+ years on KROQ. I don’t know how much music Jed actually recorded, but he packs a whole lot into the 85 seconds “LACA Perv” assaults your senses. There are dueling vocals split on both sides, banging drums, fuzzy bass or guitar, punchy synth lines and even a kazoo solo. I can’t really make out much about the lyrics, other than something both Goulds say about being “vagina oriented,” and when Jed on the right calls himself a pervert and then Jed in the other ear agrees and says “of course you are.”

I have no clue what the LACA in “LACA Perv” stands for. “Los Angeles County” is a solid guess for the first three letters, but it’s the “A” that I can’t sort out. Perhaps someone who knew LA in the 1970s can chime in, maybe “LACA” was a public spot where pervy things went down, maybe it was a fairly perverse section of LA government…No idea. But, the track is a weird, freakout and even though that album cover is certainly eye catching, I’m not sure I would have had the patience to needle drop through all of the songs, without Cool Chris’ always helpful note. But that patience to check out all of the music, and let you know what the best track is, is exactly what makes Groove Merchant such a mecca for us folks.

Posted on Ephemera

Catch A Groove – Hip-Hop At 50

Juice – Catch A Groove
Grand Wizard Theodore – Live Convention ’82 Excerpt

No one could have known it at the time, but on this day in 1973, for all intents and purposes, Hip-Hop was born.  It’s hard for me to quantify the effect Hip-Hop has had on my life.  I wouldn’t be a DJ without Hip-Hop. I wouldn’t be a collector without Hip-Hop. I wouldn’t hear music the way I do without Hip-Hop. I wouldn’t have my PhD without Hip-Hop, since my dissertation was on Hip-Hop. So, given that, I had to post something on this day and pay respect.  For, it was on this day 50 years ago, in the rec room of 1520 Sedwick Ave. in the Bronx, that Kool DJ Herc did something he’d never done before…deciding to just focus on the break beats of certain records, in some cases running that break between two records and that innovation, Herc’s “Merry-Go-Round,” is what started it all. 

For me, so much of what really caused me to love Hip-Hop was the break, and how so much of the music was literally based on pieces of the past, used in ways that the musicians and the record labels never could have dreamed of.  Instead of taking the record as a final product, Hip-Hop DJs & producers created something brand new.  And in many cases, certainly the case with this record from Juice, the music itself just sounds like it was recorded with Hip-Hop already in mind.  If Hip-Hop wasn’t still so insular in 1976 when this 12” was released, a case could be made that the record had been made with Hip-Hop in mind, but the sound and the scene was still too young.  This record wasn’t made for Hip-Hop, it’s meant to be on Disco soundsystems, but once Herc lit the spark, it was only a matter of time before a record like this would find its way into DJ’s collections and in performance on the 1s and 2s.  The break itself is so long, and flows nicely into another instrumental passage, and there’s that mini-breakdown just before the drum break, perhaps the most iconic part of the song, that makes this is a rare double break, one that can be picked up in multiple places and extended in ways that you couldn’t with other songs. 

According to Davey D, “Everybody want to flow over Juice, ‘Catch A Groove.’  If you were rapping and that record came on, man, you’ve got to get a piece of it.  Everybody would be fighting over it.  You’d hear somebody saying, ‘Come on, finish that rhyme so I can get in there.’”  “Catch A Groove” became a staple in Hip-Hop circles in that period of time where Hip-Hop first became popular, after 1979’s “Rapper’s Delight,” became an international hit.  But there was a disconnect between what you might have heard in clubs and parks in NYC and what you heard on record.  The DJ was essentially removed, replaced by a band of musicians, who would recreate versions of the breaks that DJs spun (and in time become breaks themselves).  Just before Style Wars and Wild Style created a document in film of this moment in Hip-Hop, you had “Bee-Bop’s Live Convention ’82: #1 Cut Creators,” likely recorded live at T-Connection in the Bronx, and one of the rare places you can hear Hip-Hop as it existed in that first decade before the genre began to diversity and multiply into dozens of dozens of sub-genres in the 1990s. Hearing the original break from the recorded song (and kids, please remember, that drum break is only on the 12,” not, I repeat, NOT on the 45!), and then hearing all of the ways Grand Wizard Theodore cuts it up is amazing.  Just one of many examples of the creativity that was unleashed in the wake of Kool DJ Herc’s moment of inspiration. On this day, August 11th, 1973.  The day Hip-Hop was born.

Posted on Dig Deep

Dig Deep: Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Here Comes The Whistleman – Atlantic (1967)

Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Yesterdays
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Making Love After Hours
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Here Comes The Whistleman

Started off the month of August on the good foot, with multiple posts thus far in this first week, and hope I’ll finally be able to get back into a routine rhythm sharing things, but…If there’s one day of the year you are guaranteed to get a post here on Melting Pot, it is today, August 7th, the birthday of our patron saint, Rahsaan Roland Kirk.  Kirk’s recorded output was so extensive and so consistently good, that there will probably be a few records that we don’t even get to before this blog’s days are done.  But, I was surprised that I hadn’t already shared this album previously.  “Here Comes The Whistleman” was Rahsaan’s debut on Atlantic.  You’ll notice on the cover that “Live” is in quotes, and that was to distinguish the record from a proper live concert, at a proper venue, when this was essentially a private concert at the Atlantic Records HQ with a select few lucky souls who were there to bear witness. 

And though it is a relatively short album, it does still showcase all of the things that made Rahsaan such a beloved musician.  More than the virtuostic playing, it’s the joy, especially the joy at doing new things and creating new sounds.  Whether in terms of what I think is Rahsaan singing through his flute or sax on “Yesterdays,” the combination of what almost sounds like a mix of “The In-Crowd” and “I’m Comin’ Home Baby Now,” on “Making Love After Hours,” or the complete reckless abandonment that marks “Here Comes The Whistleman,” where Rahsaan gave those assembled all manner of noisemakers and whistles so they could join in and make a joyful noise together.  Even Rahsaan’s sense of humor is here, such as when he jokes with long time producer Joel Dorn (though here, essentially their first work together) that he wouldn’t have got caught in turnpike traffic if he had left Rahsaan, who was blind, drive.

What a joy it is to have music from someone so special.  I think the liner notes, written by Del Shields, really hit the spot in describing how special Rahsaan was:

“To know the man is to know his music.  He is fantastic, not because he is blind, but because he is a beautiful human being. He is gifted with enormous talent and finds the crying need to search, probe, experiment and make music.  At last count he has mastered 45 instruments.  Music is his life, and life is his music.  When the critics stop being amazed and weigh his accomplishments objectively, they will admit that Roland Kirk is indeed one of the geniuses of our time.”

Peace & Bright Moments y’all,

Michael

Posted on Ephemera

Johnny Bello’s Mysterious Black Oil

Johnny Bello’s Strawberry Cliffs Of Monica – Black Oil

This record came my way a few years ago during the pandemic well before things opened up.  Essentially every year I’ve lived in California, back since 1999, I’ve made at least one trip to Groove Merchant, which remains my all-time favorite record store.  With that not possible during the pandemic, there were a couple of times where I sent Cool Chris a certain amount of money, and asked him to just send me records that he thought I’d dig.  Perhaps some of you might think that’s foolish, but if you do, you clearly don’t know Cool Chris.

One of the best things about Groove Merchant are the notes that Chris will add to records, “Breezy California Folk-Psych, Check ‘Summer’ on Side 2,” or “Check out 2-1,” or “Breaks on A-1,” and on and on. So, when this 45, from a band I’ve never heard of, and even after a couple of years of searching still haven’t found any information about, arrives with a note in Chris’ handwriting saying “I Dig This One,” you know it’s gonna be something special.

This song from the appropriately theatrically named Johnny Bello’s Strawberry Cliffs of Monica likely isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but knowing Chris and Chris knowing me, it’s exactly the kind of 45 I love.  It all starts with those repetitive high notes from guitar that hypnotically flow throughout the mellow psych vibes of the song (only broken up by a psychedelic freakout after the 2nd verse). And then, there’s Johnny.  Johnny Bello appears to be the credited (and apparently, the only songwriting credit of his career) songwriter John Pereira. There’s zero info about Johnny online, but I would not be surprised if he had a theater background.  Some of it’s in the theatrical performance (which I bet on stage included a cape and rather dramatic hand motions while singing) and theatrical phrasing of his vocals.  Some of it is in the largely inscrutable lyrics (for example, I’ve listened to this song at least 50 times, and I still don’t know why its titled “Black Oil”), that when you can understand them give off Hippie Prophet/Guru vibes critiquing the plastic world around us and pushing us to “stop looking behind you, start looking around you…start looking inside of you,” before Johnny Bello lives up to his name. 

The record feels like a private press, but Sand was a solid label, though not generally for psych, and the one-off nature of this 45 makes it seem like the label simply didn’t know what to do with Johnny Bello and the group.  That is a shame.  There’s some flashes of serious talent here and it would have been interesting to hear what Johnny Bello’s Strawberry Cliffs Of Monica would have done on a full LP.  But, at least we have this 45.  And this is a 45 that both me and Cool Chris of Groove Merchant most definitely dig.

Posted on Dig Deep

Dig Deep: Thomas Brown – Afro-Latin Percussion – Golden Crest (1978)

Thomas Brown – Masquerade
Thomas Brown – Afro-Latin Percussion (Discussion + Demonstration)
Thomas Brown – Dance
Thomas Brown – Mardi Gras

This album came my way via Cool Chris, but based on the handwritten price on the inner sleeve, I suspect it might have originally come from one of DJ Shadow’s storage sales at Rappcats.  Not a ton of info on Thomas Brown, and from looking online, it appears that (at least as a leader) he only released albums on Golden Crest, which would seem to be more of an educational type private press, given the lack of a back cover & the pasted inner photo of Brown, but from the other releases that are known, seems like they may have branched out a bit further from that niche.

In the notes it mentions a couple of other albums by Brown, but there’s nothing online connected to them.  I have the sneaky suspicion that those others might be even better than this one, but that may just be wishful thinking on my part.  The playing on this album is quite good and while I normally don’t dig this type of instructional thing, I actually found Brown’s discussion of the various percussion instruments, as well as their place in Afro-Latin music (with a strong emphasis on the African origins of the rhythms explored here) to be inciteful and useful.  I wish his vocal explanations had been recorded separately from the instrumentals, since, in a very professorial fashion, he ends up just yelling over the musicians as they play, but such is the vibe.

And when the band just plays, as is the case on the group’s cover of Leon Russell’s “Masquerade,” plus originals like “Dance,” and the album’s closer “Mardi Gras,” it’s a solid sound.  Doesn’t really seem like a lot of people are up on this album, but I dig it, and I suspect you would as well, and so here it is.  Enjoy!