Red Hot Chili Peppers: Jungleman, Nevermind, The Brother’s Cup
From: Freaky Styley [EMI, 1985]

I’d like to try something kinda new here on Earfuzz: spotlight the work of a major-label, multi-platinum, globe-trotting, model/actress-dating, Billboard Chart-topping, cash cow juggernaut of an artist – Red Hot Chili Peppers. I think most anyone (fans & haters alike) would agree that it’s a bit surprising this band weathered such drama and devastating lineup changes to last 25+ years and become a household name. 9 albums. Wha? How did this happen?

Well, let’s take a trip back in time to the band’s retrospectively “classic” album #2 – Freaky Styley (1985). Oh, the 1985 pop charts: ‘Careless Whisper’, ‘We Are the World’, ‘Like a Virgin’… Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack… no mention of any Red Hot Chili Peppers. No, the Chili Peppers had not yet worked their way into the center lens of the pop-culture overmind, they were busy fighting to make a name for themselves and scrapping for their piece of the pie. One can hear this vitality and lust for life in the music. It’s an exuberance not yet touched by the tragedies to come.

Freaky Styley: 14 songs comprising a singular statement: the style and music of this band is “freaky”.

George Clinton handles production while Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker handle horn arrangements; so, it’s no surprise to read quotes like this from Jason Birchmeir of Allmusic: “Freaky Styley is the closest the Red Hot Chili Peppers ever came to straight funk. [it] is the quirkiest, loosest, and most playful album in their long and winding catalog.” Birchmeir continues, “It’s also one of the best if also one of their least heard.”

This lineup is a real treat. Aside from the long-standing core of Anthony Keidis and Flea, we get founding guitarist Hillel Slovak and drummer Cliff Martinez fully fostering the “freaky”. Slovak’s influence on the band is the subject of much writing (much of it more informed than anything I could draft), so, I won’t get too deep into it here. Instead, I will take a moment to give Cliff Martinez props. His drumming really stands out for me here. There’s something uniquely funky about his playing that liberates this music in a way that would slowly change as the band migrated from punk/funk club jams to FM funk/rock with Jack Irons and then stadium arena heavy with the awesome powerhouse that is Chad Smith.

I’ll stop here. Hope you dig.

Brothers Unlimited: Who’s For The Young and Life, Dreams, Death
From: Who’s for the Young [capitol, 1970]

Fuzz Funk Soul Afro Stax. That’s the google keywords and RSS feed sorted. For those who want to stick around, here’s some more in-depth stuff about the men who came together to produce this one great album before moving off again on their own paths through life.

Formed from a 14 strong band of musicians from the Memphis area, Brothers Unlimited included the actual brothers Curtis and Harold Johnson who had previously been with Stax group The Astors, notching up a number of reasonable hits including The Twilight Zone. Unsurprisingly, considering their location, this Stax link ran deep in the group with member Charles Allen going on to play with the reformed Bar-Kays in the seventies.
Details about the rest of the group are disappointingly scarce but it would seem safe to assume that most if not all of them crafted out reasonable careers as the playing on the record is way more than competent and the talented members self produced their album as well.

The music itself is very much of that late sixties early seventies rock funk crossover period which I still can’t get enough of after all these years. Who’s For The Young is message music delivered to perfection with it’s mixture of fuzzy funk and impassioned vocals. Also feeling those minor key harmonies a lot as well as the funky little breakdown.

Life, Dreams, Death is pretty different from the rest of the album but different in a good way. Very much in the Chambers Brothers style of epic rock/soul this benefits greatly from the beautiful harmonies and lead vocal interchange over the ominous organ and bass chords as the track slows and then builds to a crescendo. Big fan of this kind of stuff my friends.

Good news on the availability front as this once extremely rare record is now available on a decent reissued CD. If this is still too much money in these worrying times then I’ve seen Who’s For The Young floating around on a few compilations you should be able to pick up for a snip.

Since my last post, I’ve been slowly piecing together a studio reel to showcase the varied sounds and spirit of our studio. We’re trying to open the doors, make our presence known, and pull in some clients. It’s a tricky time to attempt to charge money for studio services because there are so many small, independent studios here in Brooklyn. Most bands we speak with either have their own recording set up, or, already have access to an affordable studio… which is pretty cool.

So, rather than attempt to wow people with our gear inventory and with super high-fidelity audiophile clips; I’m opting to present our studio as more of an “experience”. A unique creative space infused with inspirado (sort’ve like Earfuzz). An easy place for music to happen.

I selected 20 tracks that seemed to span a nice range of sound/artists/energy and yet coexist nicely. After a few false starts with some online media players (they do wierd things with 1 second clips), I opted for the simplicity of 1 file. So, I imported the mp3’s into Protools…

Studio Reel Mix #1 (1:54) [Warning : Loud Mix]
I discovered this by accident. When I imported the tracks, Protools set them up as 20 separate tracks. I pressed play and this is the result: 16 of the tracks each playing simultaneously (Protools would only let me play 16 at a time). To me, this almost sounds like a trailer for the second clip.

Studio Reel Mix #2 (18:16)
This is the 20 tracks in sequence. I made 3 separate tracks in order to balance the volume levels between the different clips with different compressors. I like how starting with lossy file types and too much compression makes it sound similar to an FM broadcast.

And, moving forward: This past weekend we hosted our first show (we hope there will be many more). Unlike our annual New Years Eve free-for-all-everyone-plays-everything jamathon, we invited a few bands to each play a set. And, we recorded it. So, hopefully soon I will have some highlights from the night to share.

In the meantime: 2007-12-30 pt 11 (21:18) An optimistic look forward (with plenty of cow bell).

Thanks for listening.

Mitch Mitchell 9 July 1947 – 12 November 2008

Jimi Hendrix Experience: Fire and Sunshine Of Your Love
From: Live at Winterland

Rest in peace to one of my favourite drummers. I don’t know much about the art of the sticks but even I could always recognise the greatness of this man’s talent. As part of the legendary Jimi Hendrix Experience he more than held his own against the great man’s guitar playing managing to throw in jaw dropping moments of drumming while never being thrown by the experimental roads the music took. In my mind at least his work with and post Hendrix helped lay the foundation for many generations of drummers to come and should never be underestimated.

I just chose two random tracks of this fantastic live recording though pretty much any of them would have done to showcase Mitchell at the height of his powers. RIP.

Amanaz: History Of Man and Sunday Morning
From: Africa [1975]

Chrissy Zebby Tembo & Nagozi Family: Fisherman and Trouble Maker
From: My Ancestors [1974]

You know, I like to think we have a good relationship, we’ve been discussing music now for near on four years, I’ve played you my pick of my collection, you’ve listened politely. Therefore, in the interests of honesty, I’m not going to claim that I own the records featured today on vinyl or have ever even been in the same room as either. However, I couldn’t resist featuring them on the site as I was randomly introduced to both by two different people over the course of the last week and they have been my soundtrack of choice ever since.

Sometimes you hear an album and it just fits exactly what you were looking for so well that it’s almost scary. This is what happened when I first heard Amanaz. From the moment the combination of lo fi production, fuzzy guitars and soulful vocals kicked off I knew I was going to love the album and it didn’t disappoint. What was bizarre though was that within two days of hearing this the topic of Chrissy Zembo randomly came up on Soulstrut, I clicked out of curiosity, and found another 1970’s Zambian album which fitted the mood just as well if not better. The albums share a theme so well that you could picture Chrissy and Amanaz sharing studio time and recording tips.

So, without further ado, first up, Amanaz. Recorded in 1973, the album is delivered in a mixture of English and native tongue Bemba and it’s all absolute fire. History of Man is more than a little reminiscent of early seventies rock like Jimi and Cream with a guitar line that is about as fuzzed out as you can humanly get.
Sunday Morning is something else entirely, with an air of Velvet Underground about its combination of rough edges, sweet melody and far off vocals it’s been the track of choice for me as I prepare for the day on my commute into work. Something I coudl listen to on repeat for hours, it really is spellbindingly beautiful.

Chrissy Zebby Tembo’s My Ancestors, from the following year, takes the sound of Amanaz even further, with slightly higher production values and a more uptempo approach. Fisherman features the kind of fuzzy guitar line that I spend days flicking through early seventies albums to find and is used to jaw dropping effect on this track with it’s lively percussion and heavy bass.
You know how I said History Of Man was a fuzzy as you could get? Well Trouble Maker is just a dirty dirty fuzz beast. Sounding like he recorded the music underneath a pile of blankets, the track features the kind of guitars My Bloody Valentine would have given a nut to produce, combined with the much clearer and desperate vocals over the top. This track is facemelting and mind blowing at the same time.

I have many grievances from when stuff has been appropriated off the Fuzz without credit so I must take time to mention that you can get Amanaz from the Crotchbat blog and Chrissy from ChrisGoesRock. I also appropriated both their factual titbits so thank you guys, appreciate it. Also cheers to DJ James and bassie for giving me the heads up on these in the first place. That’ll probably do before this turns into the Oscars.

Enjoy and if you know of any more artists like this please please please please let me know.

Spooky Tooth: Society Child and Love Really Changed Me
From: It’s All About [Island, 1968]

Sometimes you hear music that sounds so spot on to what you were searching for that you have to do a double take to check it is what it claims to be. A friend played me Spooky Tooth’s cover of Society Child after I’d mentioned how much I loved the Common People LP. Despite reassurances that the British band did record this at the end of the sixties I went on a Google and Wiki hunt to confirm the fact before I was totally convinced and purchased the album.

The reason for my wariness was that the album ticked all the boxes I wanted when looking for Psych/Prog music with it’s full thrust drums placed high in the mix, decent guitars but no long solos, and impassioned vocals. It sounded more like a modern band who’d grown up on drum breaks imitating the sound than something that came about at the time.

Anyway, the internet has soothed my fears and I can confirm that this is the real deal, the band releasing a number of albums at the end of the sixties/beginning of the seventies in a fuzz style reminiscent of their label mates Traffic. By most accounts, their first album, It’s All About, is the weakest of their releases but I personally find that hard to believe as it’s a great slice of Rock.

As mentioned earlier, Spooky Tooth’s cover of Society Child is a true gem, hefty Axelrod style drums, menacing guitar and full on wailing vocals the band go all outs on this but, to my mind at least, avoid the pastiche area that bands like Vanilla Fudge can fall into.

Love Really Changed Me has more of a soul edge with shades of Phil Spector style Wall of sound production and rollicks along at a very mean pace indeed.

Mention must be made of the top notch job done on the reissue of this which no doubt helps with the full bodied sound the band display.

Looking through their Wiki history it seems most of the band members crafted a decent career for themselves after the original line up dissolved and a number of band members are still releasing and touring today. Oh yeah, almost forgot, apparently one of the organ players in the band was none other than Gary Wright of Dreamwaver infamy so you learn something new every day. Enjoy.

Compost: Thinkin and Take Off Your Body
From: Take Off Your Body [Columbia, 1971]

Back with the funk in a big way today my friends. We’ve featured Jack DeJohnette’s percussion work in various groups a number of times on EarFuzz previously but today I’m turning the spotlight on to one of his earliest works leading a group with the 1971 album Take Off Your Body by Compost.

Also featuring the talents of Bob Moses and Jack Gregg, the album offers up a wide range of styles from softly softly jazz soul ballads to all balls to the floor manic funk.

Thinkin is undoubtedly the highlight of the record but it’s fair to say that it would be the highlight of many records released in that period. An absolutely fantastic example of how to do a great funk tune the DeJohnette penned piece starts off slowly via the bass and builds up to speed in no time. I particularly love the breakdown two minutes in which works brilliantly as the drums come back in over the horn section.

I mentioned balls to the floor manic funk earlier and here it is. Take Off Your Body, written by Bob Moses, is a tune filled with hard as they come double time drumming, horns, congas and multitude of other instruments while the band plead with their muse to undress. It sounds like it could be a mess, hovering on the edge a number of times, but I’m a big fan of tracks with this chaotic energy and think this pulls it off with some to spare.

The record’s yet to be reissued and seems to be pretty rare though when it does turn up on ebay it doesn’t pick up much of a hefty price (seen it go for $10 more than once). I’ve yet to get my hands on the only other album Compost put together, Life is Round, any heads up on whether it’s worth checking out would be much appreciated.

US 69: Yesterday’s Folks and Miss Goodbody
From: Yesterday’s Folks [Buddha, 1969]

How you doing? Hope you all had a good new year and are now back in the swing of 2008. Apologies for not posting for a while, I’ve been mentally preparing a few wider in scope posting themes but these are sadly all still buried inside my private mind garden, hopefully to be excavated when my brain kicks into gear.

Instead today I come to you with an album that once again defies easy categorisation. The front cover of US 69’s Yesterday’s Folks suggests a journey into epic guitar solos of a progressive nature, but, while the album is far from mainstream, this couldn’t be further from the truth my friends.

A group comprising of American and Mexican musicians, US 69 absorbed the changing face of the music scene around them to produce a real slept on gem of an album, covering rock, funk, and psych.

Yesterday’s Folks is the only track that ever appears to have been comped and it’s an absolutely fantastic tune. Kicking off with a funky bass riff the track offers up a great blend of bluesy rock with great percussion work, horns, and even a few breaks for an added bonus.

Miss Goodbody offers more percussion heavy funky rock and as an added bonus for the completists out there, was also sampled by Shadow on Red Bus.

The album has now been reissued on vinyl and I can happily recommend it as one that doesn’t disappoint from beginning to end – a real slept on beauty. All this and not one pun on 69ing either…..

On a side note, it’s a new year and one of my resolutions (probably the only one I’ve got a chance of keeping) is to expand and improve this website. Therefore, if you’ve a keen eye for design I’d certainly be interested in talking to you about potential rejigging of the site to make it a more beautiful thing to look at (difficult, I know) and, yes, money can be involved. We’re also always on the lookout for new writers (sadly no money involved here) as well so holler if you think either of these are up your street.