D.J. Rogers: Listen To The Message and Take Time
From: D.J. Rogers [Shelter, 1973]
I ain’t gonna lie, I’m fiending for some feedback at the moment. The comments sections has been pretty unloved in recent weeks and it’s starting to bug me. Kevin did ask this question before and I always swore that I would never become one of those feedback hungry bloggers but I feel forced into asking head on.
Our hits are pretty constant so why no feedback these days? Is it the music chosen? The rise of the full album blog? Or is that the original interest in Mp3 blogging has now died down to a casual interest to visit and download then move on?
Yes, sorry for the soul searching, but be assured that we do this for you. If you’re not interested in the music posted, let us know. If you think an album I’ve raved about is actually a steaming pile of shit, tell me (lord knows I could do with a reality check now and again, as could my bank balance). On the flip, if there’s music you think we should feature let us know and we’ll see what we can do. We are here to serve. The commitment is there to take Ear Fuzz on to even greater things but, to put it plainly, it’s all for nothing if all we get is radio silence as the beauty of being a blog is all about the two way interaction.
Anyway, with my pitiful plea for love out of the way, it’s on with the music and, in my personal opinion at least, an absolutely fantastic record that’s been widely ignored for the last 35 years. D.J. Rogers is most commonly known these days for his releases on RCA but today we’re focusing on his less well known but quite stunning debut, the 1973 self-titled release on Shelter. Try finding this one on a full album blog (I kid, I kid).
With a sound more akin to The Family Stone than his later releases, Rogers absolutely slays me with this record. Listen To The Message is an outstanding piece of soul funk with it’s staggered beat and layered instrumentation as Rogers does his best Sly impression over the top. All you modern funk guys with your attempts at Voodoo style meandering, THIS is what it’s supposed to sound like – it takes a lot of work to make music sound this smooth and effortless without ever losing the tune.
Take Time is another great slice of stoned funk that does a job nicely, heavier on the horns and backing vocals than Listen To The Message but just as sweet.
Hearing stuff like this helps remind me how much I love this type of music. The album’s yet to be reissued but we can still hope – stranger things have happened.
Love it? Hate it? Distinctly unimpressed? Let me know…….
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I can only speak for myself, but there might be more and more RSS readers…
I use google reader, which doesn't link to the comments. So, really, I think I've visited your actual page only a couple times – at least once, in order to get the feed link, and again now to leave this post.
Perhaps you could add a download counter, and gauge your reader response that way?
I'm a bigger fan of "Take Time" than "Listen to the Message," and I think the Sly impression is in fuller effect there.
As for the comments, what is there to add beyond "nice track" or whatever?
Well…
I think there is plenty to add besides "nice track". If you have never heard of the track, you can express how you felt in hearing it for the fist time- What you liked about it and what you didn't like about it. Those who are familiar with the music might have an anecdote or a little story about how the song affected them when they first heard it. Another thing that is interesting and helpful to the staff and our readers is if people recommend other artists who relate to the artists featured in the post.
What we are trying to do here at Ear Fuzz is get people to engage in discussions about the music that we feature in the posts. Even if you guys aren't feelin' it, please let us know that. I don't necessarily feel like we are doing this strictly for our visitors, but you guys are a huge part of it. I personally do this because I want to share music and ideas with people who have similar taste, and turn people on to things that their ears haven't been exposed to yet. Anyway, hopefully it doesn't seem like we are complaining. We are just interested in getting more feeedback from you guys, so we can make Ear Fuzz one of your regular stops throughout the week.
Cheers, Kevin
Thanks for that funky slice! Those high hats on 'listen to the message' are sick–
I like your "similar artists" suggestion. While I've never heard D.J. Rogers (I haven't even actually gotten around to listening to the track that you shared, hah!) … I am a last.fm junky, so I'll provide the top 10 similar artists as far as listening habits is concerned:
Junie
Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta
Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers
Alicia Myers
Don Pierce
Matthew Larkin Cassell
Fatback Band
Buddy Miles Express
Leon Haywood
S.O.U.L.
Which is kind of interesting, because I do have a connection to "Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta" in that I edited together a (probably horrendous) mashup/mix of sorts that used one of their carnivaly sounding tunes. You can have a listen to that <a href="http://jimbalaya-music.blogspot.com/2008/02/creation-but-ive-never-heard-anything.html">here</a> if you'd like.
i have always appreciated your posts; some more than others. nevertheless i just failed to take the time to comment. due to your generosity and time i can extend the courtesy to comment moving forward.
Well I've been visiting this blog for what must be a couple of years now, and it' always been high on my list of favourites. I may not like everything on here, but that's part of what I like.
Personally, I'm not at all interested in full album blogs – for me it's all about coming across as broad a range of stuff a possible, and I'd rather have a few gems I can chase up further than a whole album any day.
Keep it up, folks.
Cheers,
Perry (in Norway)
As luck would have it, after issuing my plea for feedback there seems to be something up with haloscan which is preventing me seeing the comments left beyond the snippets in the sidebar feed! I did click on here yesterday before it all went tits up though so..
The RSS point is a good point cheers Jimbalaya and one that I guess goes hand in hand with having a site that is linked up to these services. I'm happy for the music to reach as many listeners as possible so can't really complain on this front.
Tommy I take your point about the worth of leaving comments but, without going too emo, I've never minded even a simple 'nice post'. It can otherwise sometimes feel like you're talking to noone and, while I agree with Kevin that I certainly get pleasure out of writing and sharing the music, feedback of any kind is always useful on spurring us on with new ideas and subjects.
Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to read the other comments later today when haloscan sorts itself out and get back to you.
Cheers for the people leaving comments – I do feel like I should make it clear that I don't want anyone to feel obliged to comment – it just always is appreciated.
hey sorry.. ilove your selectio…this latest one i new nothing about so it was very welcoming…keep on mining the interesting stuff.
Essential Blog – been a regular vistor here for over a year now – love the different styles of music (esp the funk) & the passionate and informative writeups. As a straight hip hop head from OZ, I admit to knowing zilch about most of the music posted, hence a lack of comment from me. I intend to correct this in the future.Keep it going Junior (& team), is the UK dream era post still in the works? (see Feb 28)
I'm a big fan of your blog. I can only suggest that the huge number of blogs these days means that people do zoom from one to the other, dling the tracks they want.
It's take, take, take these days… it was different when I was a boy
)
Please don't be downhearted, and keep up the good work.
Found your blog through soul-sides.com and have been checking ever since. My first comment but I do appreciate the time and effort put in. As for DJ Rogers stumbled on his greatness through a Diplo mix that featured "Bail Out" on itand love both his albums. Also "It's Good to be alive" is on of my favs.
thanks.
Thanks for the feedback guys, like I said, it's always therapeutic to have a reflective moment now and again.
Gf, ha ha I had forgotten about the UK dream era rap post, my main issue with it was the length of the post I was planning – once we've upgraded the site we'll be able to expand/shorten the text shown so it doesn't take over the page. I'll get back to work on it soon……
Peace:
I've been a fan for years and have not until today commented. I recall when Oliver Wang of Soul Sides gave y'all hell for bitting his audiobloging sensibilities.
I wish to apologize for never leaving a comment. As a blogger myself (Fulsome is my audioblog) and being the producer of the 1991 release of Alphabet Soup's: Sunny Day in Harlem EP I can dig the lack of appreciation some show listening and downloading and not providing feedback.
As to D.J. Rogers I am happy to have been introduced to him via EarFuzz – thank you. I offer the following: Listen to the Message features the synth drums that were routinely used by Sly Stone yet Take Time is more in the vein of SS.
I've been reading for a few years now, along with the other usual suspects (Captain's crate, soul-sides, office naps, etc.)plus more obscure ones. I've never posted a comment on any of these sites.
Honestly? I don't post because I don't feel like I know enough. I'm not a "head", or a "crate-digger", what-have-you. I'm a woman who was born and raised in the 70's, who loves all this music – past and present iterations.
These blogs are my education. I read the post before I listen, I download selectively. I would say 90% of my purchases are made based on hearing a single on an audioblog. And I do have an "Earfuzz" playlist on my iTunes where I keep my download from your blog, and subsequent purchases.
Please keep on keepin' on. And I'll try to say something smart.
SC
Hi Junior and Kevin,
This is soulbrotha from the blog 4brothersbeats2.0. I have to apologize because for some reason I thought you guys closed this blog down! I even quoted Junior on a recent post for The Earth Disciples as being from the "now defunct blog, Ear Fuzz." One of our readers had to point out that you are alive and well. Oops. Sorry.
I must say that I have an issue with the term "feedback hungry blogger." I don't think that wanting appreciation for your hard work or input from readers is a bad thing. We did a post on this very topic and have gotten almost 200 responses to that one post. See it here:
http://fourbrothersbeats.blogspot.com/2008/02/get-together.html
Please feel free to share your thoughts with us.
Our position is the same as yours. Regardless of what kind of music blog you run, it's good to know folks appreciate your hard work. I find nothing needy about that.
You have wonderful blog and I'm glad to know that you are still around.
Holden, ha ha yeah, Oliver put us in our place from the off which I actually appreciated – I have very little doubt that it is thanks to him linking us on his blog that we managed to build a readership in the first place and I'm aware that we're sometimes slack at highlighting other great blogs out there.
SC, thanks for the honest feedback – I have to say that I am in no way a real head when it comes to this – my knowledge is limited at best and is expanding weekly (if you look back at Evigan Funk you can see it slowly grow). I can't speak for any of the other writers but it's my personal feeling that everybody has at least one artist who they know that the most learned digger will be entirely unfamiliar with – there's so much good music out there that's it would be a foolish person indeed who claimed to know it all.
Hey soulbrotha, thanks for the link – looks to me like you've managed to capture it a lot more eloquently than I could manage. Looking forward to contributing my two cents.
I visit alot of full album blogs. I love them but mp3 joints like y'all and Soul Sides were first so I respect the architect more. For some reason I dont check with SSides but y'all stay bringin out the new new dusty grooves, educatin hiphoppers like myself and sometimes some new future funk, good lookin and keep the records comin!
To re-iterate my reasons for not posting comments here (very often), I feel like I don't know enough about a lot of the music that you post here, especially (but not limited to) vintage funk and soul.
The DJ Rogers tracks, to me at least, sounded fairly generic. There's no doubt that the guy has a voice, it's just that the music sounds fairly Sly Stone/Bobby Womack. I don't know enough about funk but to feel that I've heard this all before makes me not want to pursue it.
You guys provide some solid posts on some truly great music and some out-there stuff that I've never heard before, so keep it up.
Take Time is a storming track – somewhere in the middle it sounds like Gil Scott Heron's mid 70s jams (or rather vice versa).
Who's playing guitar on these tracks?Love the BB-King references in Listen To The Message.
I visit around once a week, I use NetVibes to tell me if anything new is up, then I visit the site proper.
Out of the 20 or so Music blogs I visit, yours is the best for funk and soul as far as I can see. I've never left feedback before so a big THANKYOU.
PB – London
sweet
I didn't read all the comments concerning the appeal of D.J.Rogers' music. I heard songs by D.J. Rogers for the first time when I was stationed in D.C. in the late 60s. He did a song on a jazz artists' album entitled "Butterfly". Til this day, I still think of that song, as it remains in my soul. As I stated earlier, it was in the late 60s, thus making me a young elderly person, consequently loosing some of my memory. If there is a person viewing this comment who can identify the artist and album he sang the song Butterfly, please be so kind as to email me the information, lmoses@excite.com. I am thanking someone in advance.