Human Instinct: Stoned Guitar and Midnight Sun
From: Stoned Guitar [Pye, 1970]

Thanks to an in-depth post on RYM focusing on albums loaded with fuzz guitars, I have been slowly amassing quite the collection of fuzz-filled tracks to post here for your listening pleasure. Today I am featuring two songs from Human Instinct, a psychedelic blues band from New Zealand who released five albums between the years of 1969-1974. Obviously their 1970 album Stoned Guitar fell underneath my radar for so many years because it only had a limited pressing on a small indie label named Pye in 1970.

After hearing the screeching, feedback-drenched guitar from the first minute of the title track, “Stoned Guitar”, I thought I was in for some experimental noise rock like Wolf Eyes or Lightning Bolt.  It turns out that I couldn’t have been more wrong, as this track progresses into a psych rock monster that has to be heard to be believed. The first sign of the rhythm section doesn’t even enter the picture until the 2 1/2 minute mark of the song, right after an echoing wah-wah guitar slowly prepares you for the inevitable assault on your eardrums.   At this point,  the track ignites into a frenetic storm of blistering fuzz guitar that could peel the paint off the walls in your living room.  Honestly, if you can find a track with more fuzz guitar than this, my ears probably couldn’t handle it. 

After you catch a breather from listening to that first track, you will be ready for the repetitive kraut-rock groove of “Midnight Sun” which explodes into a guitar solo of epic proportions.  There is one short verse within the first two minutes of the song, and then over the next four minutes be prepared to witness one of the most mind-blowing solos ever committed to wax.  After this masterful display of pyrotechnics, there is a short reprise of the first verse, and then the track closes out with a quickly strummed wah-wah guitar riff over the top of echoing vocals.

There’s no doubt that Human Instinct’s lead guitarist, Billy Te Kahika, spent hours listening to and absorbing the guitar tones of Jimi Hendrix before unleashing these tunes on the general public.  But there is more going on here than simply copying the guitar style of Jimi Henrix. Billy has undoubtedly captured a sense of dynamics on his solos that separates him from the pack of Hendrix clones that emerged from the late 60’s into the early 70’s. 

I hope you have enjoyed the music I presented today, and I look forward to hearing what you think of these tunes.

Main Source: Just Hangin’ Out
From: Breaking Atoms [Capitol, 1991]

Gwen McCrae: 90% of Me Is You
From: Rockin’ Chair [Cat, 1975]

Sister Nancy: Bam Bam
From: One, Two [Techniques, 1982]

Skull Snaps: I Turn My Back On Love
From: Skull Snaps [GSF, 1973]

Ike and Tina Turner: Bold Soul Sister
From: Hunter [Blue Thumb, 1969]

Mike Bloomfield/Al Kooper/Steven Stills: Season of the Witch
From: Super Session [Columbia, 1968]

While the blistering sun is warming the asphalt in Portland today, I thought I would take the opportunity to bless your ears with a sample breakdown from Main Source’s Breaking Atoms.

This record first dropped in the summer of 1991, right about the time when real hip-hop was being replaced by braggadocio and bling. The rhyming and production skills on this record are practically unparalleled in the history of hip-hop, with the dense, layered production enhancing the creative rhymes of Producer/MC Large Professor. Main Source went on to make one last attempt at stardom with the ill-fated Fuck What You Think in 1994, but Breaking Atoms is the one that sticks in my mind as a true classic.

The opening drum break is skillfully lifted from the 1:44 mark of Skull Snaps’ gritty “I Turn My Back on Love”. Shortly after this intro break, the main groove of the track is spliced from the seven second mark of Gwen McCrae’s soulful “90 % of Me Is You.” While the groove is flowing, the laid-back horns taken from the three second mark of Sister Nancy’s “Bam Bam” create a relaxing vibe that is perfect for summer evenings. At around the 1:21 mark of “Just Hangin Out”, a playful vocal part from the thirty-nine second mark of “Bam Bam” acts as a bridge from the main groove. Ike and Tina Turner’s “Bold Soul Sister” and Mike Bloomfield’s “Season of the Witch were also sampled on this track, but I can’t for the life of me figure out which parts of these songs were sampled. If any of you crate-diggers and vinyl enthusiasts have any thoughts about where these samples came from, please enlighten me.

This concludes the Anatomy of a Sample for Main Source’s “Just Hangin Out”. I hope you guys have enjoyed this episode, and I would love to hear about the summer joints you were bumpin’ in 1991.

A Beautiful Mind (Instrumental) – Aceyalone & RJD2
from the album Magnificent City Instrumentals on Decon (2006). Also appears on The Mad Men Season One Soundtrack on Manhattan (2008).

Little Willy – Sweet
from the album Sweet on Camden (1973).

Saying that commercial radio is far from a good place to discover new music is undoubtedly preaching to the choir that is our lovely Ear Fuzz audience. Possibly the next statement to be made is equally non-relevatory: television is remarkably musically diverse these days and provides lots of elements to broaden the mind. Commercials (Ms. Shaw and Ms. James can really sell some Dockers), NBA broadcast interstitials (was that really both Madlib and Zappa during the same Lakers game a couple of weeks ago?), and show soundtracks (what this post is about) have far outpaced actual music on tv since MTV decided the “M” stood for “moronic, drunk, pretty people.”

A couple of real nice examples from show soundtracks feature two songs (one well known to me, one a new discovery) from two TV shows I am really enjoying that both provide a great deal of their entertainment from their highly complete and reverential recreation of a different time in America’s history. First up is the brilliant instrumental for “A Beautiful Mine” produced by RJD2 for the Magnificent City album he made with Aceyalone. That album is amazing, and this song in particular is the kind of dense, multi-movement beat symphony (crud, I wish I could think of something less sycophantic to call this than a freakin’ “beat symphony”) that RJD2 had on lock for most of the 2000s. I’ve loved this song for a minute, but it has been high in my head since I’ve been enjoying it as the opening credits for Mad Men…aka The BEST television show currently in production. The show is all about life for the urbane, upper-middle class creative types in the late 50s/early 60s US, so I cannot say that it captures the feel of the show in some unique way since this is clearly not a song of that period. However, the sharp beats, lush strings, and various foreboding elements provide a feeling of the lurking intensity and uncertainty that permeates Mad Man. Wonderful show, super-fantastic song…a great pairing.

While, Mad Men helped give RJD2’s track a new mental image, I discovered a new track watching Life On Mars recently. Taking full advantage of the show’s storyline of a police detective who travels through time from the present to 1973 (yup, but it isn’t as bad as it sounds), the production has made music a heavy part of creating the 1973 environment…appropriate for a show named after a David Bowie song. Anyways, one of the biggest hits of 1973 was Sweet’s “Little Willy,” which actually fit extremely well into the episode’s story. Sweet was a pop-rock outfit with the emphasis on the pop early in their career when they were under the guidance of writing/arranging duo Chinn & Chapman (who wrote “Little Willy”). Tracking down the album proved an easy effort because these guys were at one point huge stars, although they somewhat wrecked their legacy with attempts at serious, self-written more hard-rock-oriented late in their career. I cannot say I recommend any other songs on this album, but somehow the bluesy pop and harmonized vocals of this track really make me happy and bouncy despite the crap weather of late. Plus poorly veiled double entendres will always have a place on my record shelves.

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At the request of a loyal long-time Ear Fuzz reader/listener, here is a repost of Mista Sinista’s remix of the Tom Tom Club’s DJ shoutout track Who Feelin’ It?.