Thriller in... L.A.

Just in time for Halloween, the homeboy DJ Day and Exile got busy with "Thriller" last night at the Root Down in LA:



Their live routines are incredible.

Here's another from a few months back in which they go in on D-Train's "You're the One for Me":



Incidentally, Exile's most recent album, Radio, is very good. The concept is wild-- he made an entire album out of sounds sampled from the radio (voices, static, buzz, tones, instruments, etc.)-- and the execution is even better. I prefer it to a lot of the other more-hyped dublab stuff from L.A.

He also produced the entirety of Fashawn's Boy Meets World, which I bought the other day but haven't got around to digesting yet. Fashawn's free Alchemist-produced mixtape was pretty enjoyable (Leon Ware! Jackson Sisters! Sammy Nestico! etc.!).

Falsificação

I'm not sure how, but last week this 2 year old Consequence song lodged itself in my head firmly:


Consequence: "Don't Forget 'Em" (G.O.O.D., 2007)

I've managed to mostly ease the situation with liberal doses of the Milton Nascimento original, but I also ended up dusting off a few other pseudo-Brazilian favorites.



Jay Dee: "Rico Suave Bossa Nova" (rough extended version) (BBE, 2002)

"Rico Suave" appeared on Dilla's 2002 Welcome 2 Detroit album. It's basically him and Karriem Riggins goofing on some Sergio Mendes-ness.

A few years ago I heard my homie Tim Diesel play "Rico Suave Bossa Nova" at a gig, which led me to whip up this unfancy little re-edit-- I gave it a mixable intro and extended it from 90 seconds to about five minutes.



George Russell: "Brazilian Bus" (Records by Pete, 19??)

This is not the George Russell who led groups featuring Bill Evans and John Coltrane, etc., won a MacArthur genius grant and whose music theories provided the underpinning for modal jazz. It's a George Russell without a wikipedia entry or a website who, from what I can infer from the blurbs on the back of his Easy Listening LP, was a guitarist who mainly made his way in music promotion. Also, according to the notes, he's "a musician's musician, a man's man, a ladies' man, a marvelous human being."

The music on Easy Listening was arranged by Jimmie Haskell; I love what he does with the strings here. The same recordings were later issued on Dobre under the title Guitar With Orchestra.

Mighty mighty

Fresh Four: "Smoke Filled Thoughts" (Virgin, 1990)

This was the instrumental version of a 1989 soul 12", "Wishing On a Star". To enjoy that, it's pretty much essential that you be a fan of both flat singing and English rapping. To enjoy this version only requires that you appreciate hearing Faze-O's "Ridin' High" transformed over "Funky Drummer". C'mon, you can do it!

The track was produced by Smith & Mighty, who I managed to tune out for all of the 1990s I think because I had them confused with Stock, Aitken & Waterman.

Scarlet & purple

Last night I was jonesing to hear this record, specifically the part right after the break where they come in with the guitar part and the wailing vocal.


Capability Brown: "Beautiful Scarlet" (The Famous Charisma Label, 1972)

It's 50% cheese and 200% awesome. When it got to the quiet part, I remembered that it was a cover of this:


Rare Bird: "Beautiful Scarlet" (Probe, 1970)

And I remembered that somebody sampled the Rare Bird version:



Diplo: "Summer's Gonna Hurt You" (2002)

The version I've posted is different from either of the versions that got released by Big Dada. It features a big ole hunk of this at the end:



Round Trip Ticket: "Captain Purple Rides Again" (GM, 197?)

I don't know much about the Round Trip Ticket 45 other than that it's from Detroit and there's a much better-sounding version of the song with vocals. Until I heard that version, I had no idea this was a Neil Young cover.