TITLE: Jazz Raga 
ARTIST: Gabor Szabo 
LABEL: Catalyst 

In the country of Hungary, they still have traveing Gypsies snd shit. The go around on Vespa's and play sitars now, but they are still all about the free spirited musicianship and mack mode, as Gabor demonstrates. It is the kind of music that sll the hot English girls that over did the mascara had sex to in the sixties. Just cool type shit. Like you gotta be sitting in a cafe' with a goatee and a sunglasses on to really feel the effects. Gabor has some very listenable records on Impulse. I love his stuff, very melodic with his hungarian ethnic music steeze coming though somehow. He is usually playing guitar real well, but here he picks up the sitar and can't stop getting loose. This record is a jazz dance super sitar Bernard Purdie on drums type record, with a bunch of spiritual Krsna song titles. I ate Krsna food at a rainbow gathering once so I can bob my head to this record and Rasa on the regular. You don't even know rock and roll until you have heard "Paint it Black" on a sitar.

TITLE: Flashing 
ARTIST: Jimi Hendrix and Curtis Knight 
LABEL: Capitol 1968 

This is live record so it has quite a unique sound, especially the drums, which sound like the have been filtered through a garbage can in a back alley. It must be Jimi's funkiest record, even though he is just playing on it and no singing. There are many breaks to be found, and if you are hard core, peep the mescalin enhanced drumming on Hornet's Nest. The huge bassline that bust through the speaker on Happy Birthday has been flipped by Black Sheep and yhe Beastie Boys, and the drums from the title track have been negotiated by Dj Shadow For high noon. Not that means shit, but it is a reference point; this album is real nice to listen to all the way through.

TITLE: Spaced
ARTIST: Shawn Phillips 
LABEL: A&M 1977

1977 was a wack year you say? Shawn Phillips looks wack you say? Well Shawn is single handedly beating down the disco craze with his flying Winnebago. He is fresh out of the barber shop on this LP as he sheds his locks that make him a dead ringer for a child molester on his first 10 record covers. This record has got three or four very solid tracks where the rhythm section is very smooth and just runnin shit. Just like his Rumplestiltskin's Resolve LP (another good lp by him), he uses the headhunters to get busy on wax. And the drop this sophisticated funk for your trunk like whoa. So if you can handle his voice, don't sleep on this white boy, his records are pretty cheap and easy to find.

TITLE: S/T
ARTIST: Macdonald & Giles  
LABEL: Island 1971

I have this friend named Jamie who only listens to The Rolling Stones and and Glam Rock. She has a shagg haircut and only represents tight jeans. Pretty much , she aint dealling with no bullshit in 2000. She has showed me some beats on Kinks Lp's, and Yoko Ono live records, but she cant get down with my hip hop stylings and I can't listen to a full Rod Stewart album without shooting myself in the head. This is like the hip hop crossover album for our respective steezes. It's more crazy white boys clapping hands and leaving drums wide open like your mouth. This record is so easy to listen to through and through. A record store owner told me that this record falls into the genre of drunken crazy white funky jazz English stuff along with Archie Whitewater (not english btw) and Johnny Almond. The drums all over the record have an insane presence and there are funky horns and basslines popping up everywhere. Too bad they had to go and make up a group called King Crimson. You know the record with the big cartoon purple dude with the open mouth at all the thrift shops, right there sitting next to Uriah Heep and some Billy Joel jawns.

TITLE: Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse
ARTIST: Eugene Macdaniels  
LABEL: Atlantic 1971  

I really can't say anything about this record, it still blows my mind everytime I listen to it. Definitely some next shit. Shop owners say that twenty years ago, they couldnt even give this record away. Then this hippidy hoppidy craze came up and ruined all those years that the left rev mc d was going to take it easy on the record shelves. Well, at least I stumbled upon something that I never thought I would listen too, maybe the greatest record ever made.

TITLE: The Popcorn 
ARTIST: James Brown 
LABEL: King 1969 

Well I had to put up at least on James record, and this one has In The Middle Pt. 1 and 2 (one of my favorite tracks) on it so It was good enough dammit. Plus you get the Soul Pride like 20 Stanza break and some other junk. Recpect due.

TITLE: Earthrot
ARTIST: David Axelrod  
LABEL: Capitol 1970  

Easily considerd his wackest record by many (if you can deal with the Holocaust CD), This one was on some next shit that I just figured out. Its probably his least accesible because of the singing that makes people skip to the beats at the end of the tracks. He actually arranged the vocals like instruments, which makes them so unusual sounding when compared to the latest single by Brittney Spears, and they come straight from the Bible for you non-believers, as well as some old Navaho proverbs and some extras that Axelrod's son wrote in. Like an environmentally concious young fool, I definitely gotta rep this record. Not only does it look like he calls out his lable on the cover art, he also keeps it real with a big Ajax can in Gods hand. What! This is pretty much the Where's Waldo of Rare Groove (is that really a term?) albums. Beginners can catch the waterfall and the dead fish but what about the sleeping hedgehog and firey bush? Huh? Waldo must be in the Gulf War Camo 'cause he is hidden good as shit.

I get goose bumbs just listening to the intro of "The Warnings pt. 1", but "..pt. 3" is the slept on jam. You also get the dopeness of "The Signs pt. 1" (do you see a pattern here). And if you ever find it, be sure to read the insert sleeve with the important message from capitol, it is pretty damn scary.  

TITLE: Cross the Tracks
ARTIST: Maceo and the Macks 
LABEL: People 1975

I dont own many 45's but I just picked this up at a thrift store on the way to see the Human Absorber in Jail and of course I picked up all the jawns under the people label. Most of my JBs 45s sound like they have been rubbed on concrete but this one was as clean as a metal tree. Plus some supreme master digger to the umpteenth power was gonna buy this from me. ? me? Yo, he said it was worth 400 dollars on the black market because it was not on any album. That is really the only reason I have it up here. Really I got like 12 45's total.

TITLE: The United States of America 
ARTIST: United States of America  
LABEL: Columbia 1967? 

This could easily be my best record. It is probably the greatest record to be labled under psychadelic. This label used to be preserved only for LP's with lots of echos and fuzz guitar; but now, any obscure rock record that> sucks is called Psychadelic. This one has all sorts of strings instead of guitars, electronic instruments and phasers, but don't expect a spacey freakout. Nah, b, every little delay and weird circus sound has some sort of strategic placing within the tracks. There is some pretty funky cuts on here, but I dig the lyrics, and the female vocals that are arranged like the Free Design's stuff. If a song has drums, they are heavy and hard. The West Coast was full of experimental wierdos in the 60's but only a few got record deals. And if they ever released a record it was usually snatched up by some old intelectual in a used bin decades ago. And now they go for some big bucks to all the damn psych collectors that stink and plague the conventions. It was some shit that was really trying to push the envelope but not seal it. Sounds a little like Sweetwater, but a hell of a lot better.

TITLE: Black Sheep Singles
ARTIST: Black Sheep  
LABEL: Mercury

Yeah, the Black Sheep have fallen off, just like all of our heros. But they pretty much embodied the digging aesthetic. Mixing "Les Fluer" with Jefferson Airplane's "Today" and laying down "Big Sur Suite" drums and some rhythmic dog barking. How is this a song? But it all comes together nicely. Using loops from Mashmakhan and Esoteric Circle, huh. Micheal Columbier, Mouth & Macneal, and wack Paul Butterfield? Even Alphonse Mouzans 80s records were not off limits. My favorite track is Flavor of the Month. That Bubble Gum Machine Bassline and those horns and the guitar, it is like that song couldn't be put together nicer. Just perfect combinations and some crazy record choices (obscure cananadian psychadelic?) were what made me want to hunt some old rekkids. Definitely an influence on the Diplodicus.

TITLE: Europa Jazz  
ARTIST: Jeremy Stieg, Jan Hammer, Don Alias, and Eddie Gomez 
LABEL: Europa Jazz 1974


You can look around for the more celebrated Stieg lps or the > Jan Hammer ones that dont suck (cue in the Miami Vice theme song) (Hammer > pioneered the keyboard with a strap like a guitar by the way). But on this lp you get these slept on white boys together playing their best music and it's got some crazy ass breaks to boot. Break boot. I don't know the history behind the Europa Jazz gatefold generic records but there are a couple of good ones (Lonnie Smith, Mike Longo and Ron Carter) and there are a hell of a lot of booty ones, so beware, sugarbear.

TITLE: Upedo Ni Pomoja 
ARTIST: Ramsey Lewis Trio 
LABEL: Columbia 1973 

Ramsey has a bunch of good records with all sorts of grooves that have been plummeted to high heaven. Mother Natures Son, Funky Serenity, Sun Goddess, and Solar wind all come correct. And you can even find some nice breaks on his older cadet records like the freakish out of place monster show stopper on "Mighty Quinn". This one is pretty consistent (if you skip the dissapointing Put your Hand in the Hand) and the whole record has a unique drum sound that is really dirty. Nice basslines up on here too. It isn't the slightest bit hard to find but it is the kind of record that makes you look out a window and think. (at least my too poetic ass does) (you know when a good song comes on and it filters through your head and you just look out the window like Cindy Lauper in that Time After Time video?) Probably not, but as my friend, Atmosphere once said, "Man, I was listening to collage, and I figured out the key to the universe." So proceed with caution, and you might not like what you find out.