things and time will tell.

KRS-One (as Big Joe Krash) – Break The Chain, Vol. 1 No. 1 Marvel Music, Inc. – [no cat. #] Cassette, EP + Comic Book, US, 1994 info Last year I said something about a certain hip-hop meets Marvel comics TV show that was so out of my dreams that someone could have made it up just to mess with me. File this in that same folder: KRS-One and one of my favorite comic book artists teamed up to make a hip-hop, after school special style, comic for the kids, complete with a cassette featuring three all-ages, Return Of The Boom Bap  era Boogie Down Productions tracks that you've never heard. Almost has to be a story designed to send me on some e-bay/discogs wild goose chase... Except it's true and I just got my hands on a copy that's been sitting in someone's closet unopened for the last 28 years. 1994: record producer Marshall Chess (ex-of Chess and Cadet Records) somehow pulls Kris and brilliant cartoonist Kyle Baker into a Marvel Comics deal to produce an educational comic...

Various Artists – Songs Of Aretha Dubwise Showcase Ariwa Sounds – ARILP 290 Vinyl, LP, Compilation, UK, Apr 12, 2019 info I had no idea this record existed until I spotted a used copy on a recent trip. A tribute to Aretha Franklin featuring reggae covers of songs associated with the Queen of Soul, produced by Mad Professor and accompanied by dub versions? Yes, I was an easy mark for that sale. Some of these are vintage Mad Professor rhythms put to new use, others are more recent recordings. I guess there's a CD version out there too with a handful of additional songs and dubs... Keeping my eyes peeled. I appreciated the choice of songs here- You get obvious hits like Natural Woman and Burt Bacharach and Hal David's wonderful Say A Little Prayer , but a few surprises as well.  In the liner notes, Mad Professor admits to having missed out on Aretha's brilliant One Step Ahead  for forty-plus years, only hearing it as part of a tribute show he listened to the week after her de...

Chumbawamba – Ugh! Your Ugly Houses! One Little Indian – 139 TP 7 Vinyl, 7", Single, 45 RPM, UK, 1995 info I've a had a short run going here of women artists and vocalists. I move too slowly for these to turn up during women's history month, but I figured I'd keep it up for a minute to help balance the over representation of men on these pages (and in pretty much every discussion of music in the world). Chumbawamba, was a mixed gender band, so maybe they don't completely fit the bill, but the women (and the group's feminist politics) were always upfront. Plus I threatened promised to someday rip more vinyl by them, so here we go... These two tracks come from Swingin' With Raymond , Chumbawamba's eighth LP and their last before the major label adventure that scored them status as a bar trivia one hit wonder answer. The album was split in two parts, corresponding with cover star Raymond's knuckle tattoos: Hate and Love. The "Hate" side had ...

The Raincoats – Running Away / No One's Little Girl Rough Trade – RT093 Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Single, UK, Jul 1982 info By 1982, punk had helped opened doors for things that would be much more interesting than four white guys making rock and roll fast again. I guess that's part of the story: punk never was all white, definitely not just for boys, and (after that initial burst onto the scene anyway) wasn't always even very rock and roll. Cue the Raincoats. All women (except when they weren't quite), punk-ish... but less so with each recording. Violins, melodies, feminist, art, reggae and more were thrown in the mix leaving a short string of records that I think are among of the best arguments that some wonderful things came out of punk rock for those who might be skeptical. The Raincoats had already pounded out two albums in about 2 years' time when this single came out. The band shows off a new level of confidence and... funkiness? One side features their take on ...

Jill Scott – Slowly Surely (Theo Parrish Remix) Label: Not On Label (Theo Parrish) – JSTP 1 Vinyl, 12", 33 ⅓ RPM, Single Sided, Unofficial Release, UK, 2002 info Slowly Surely is hands down my favorite song by Jill Scott, remixed here by one of Detroit's most important house producers, Theo Parrish. I already loved the original track off her first album when I heard this single-sided bootleg 12" a couple years later (2002?). Parrish made something magic here, working with an already beautiful song and building it into a deep house epic. Jittering, clicking beats give way to bass over looping sounds from the original track. (How great is that sample- Anyone know where it comes from?) Percussion, echoing handclaps, and other mysterious sounds and beats flow in and out of the mix, topped by layer upon layer of Jill's voice until a mellow soul cut becomes some kind of dense, psychedelic, dancefloor ecstacy. My wife and I saw her live years ago. I remember us talking,...

Lauryn Hill – Doo Wop (That Thing) Ruffhouse Records – 78868-S1 Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, US, 1998 info The big single from Lauryn Hill’s first solo album, served up here on a 7” that I picked up back in 1998. It's funny how some music brings you back to a moment… I remember being excited for  The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill to come out- and it wound up being an  exciting record. I expected her post-Fugees solo set to be good, but Ms. Hill handed us a damn near perfect, classic album. Listening for the first time in a while recently, it's sounds pretty timeless to me, holding up even after almost 25(?!?) years. A side,  Doo Wop (That Thing),  highlights that even with hit singles like this, Miseducation  was not a crossover pop turn. She could sing, rap, write and had plenty to say that wasn't designed to sell records or score easy radio play. This cut's tales of the darker motives, posturing and desperate moves made in the name of love showed off how effortlessly she...

Sade – Promise In Tokyo: Nakano Sunplaza, Tokyo, Japan - 11th May 1986 Wardour – Wardour-194 2 x CD, Limited Edition, Numbered, Unofficial Release, Japan, 2016 info Sade in Japan part 2: A Japanese bootleg double CD that I somehow ran into featuring a nice soundboard recording of the group's May, 1986 concert in Tokyo. I doubt I have to motivate this... as someone commented on the last post, could you ever really get too much? My two cents: This is the kind of bootleg that justifies the existence of bootlegs. My life is just a little bit better for having listened to it. Sade gets associated with romantic songs, but there's always been a dark, brooding side to a lot of their songs. I think part of the appeal comes from the way that voice can be so beautiful and at the same time so heavy , if that makes any sense. That said, to my ears, there's just a little more joy to some of the live performance on this album than on the studio versions I'm so familiar with. It broug...