When I heard the news this morning about James Brown, my thoughts immediately turned to my friend Eric who might possibly be the biggest JB fan ever and lives to spread the gospel about the man's genius. It dawned on me that anything I possibly had to say about James was just a watered-down version of the passionate praise I've heard from Eric over the years. So today I have asked him to share his thoughts. Thanks, EP, for articulating what so many of us are feeling on this bittersweet Xmas day . . . -- MC

THE BADDEST MUTHAFUCKA EVER

A Guest Post by Eric Perl

monday, december 25, 2006

my phone rang at 6:15 am. not as outrageous an event as it might seem, since i’m usually awake by then, but i was still only semi-conscious at best this particular morning. i figured it would be my friend and fellow early-bird, Linda, and answered as monosyllabically as possible, just for effect:

“unhh….hmm…..yes?”

“Something awful has happened,” she said with distress in her voice.

“To whom?” i asked, still unsure if this tragedy would prove to be more comedic than real.

“James Brown.”

“He’s dead?"

and we all know what her answer was.

i reflect on JB and my thoughts bounce and weave, dance and slide, call and respond like the horns and guitars and bass and drums in any of his so-called classics (i say “so-called” because classic implies the past, and JB's music is completely present). he was everything we’ve ever heard about him, whether it was from pop-culture critics, disgruntled associates, tabloid news, or his own mouth. he was an innovator who revolutionized black music, and therefore, all popular music. he was an egomaniacal tyrant who abused his band members and his women. he was Soul Brother Number One/Mr. Dynamite/the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business/Minister of The New New Super Heavy Funk/the Godfather of Soul. he was a late-night joke with a fucked-up mug shot.

ultimately, in my mind, however, he’s simply The Baddest Muthafucka Ever. unrelenting and unapologetic. bold. crazy. possibly not even of this world. how could someone, a mere human earthling, be that funky? how could someone, a mere human earthling, realize that stripping the song to nothing but its rhythm, putting everything on The One – and not just the first beat of the measure, but one chord, one endless, throat-ripping scream – was the future of music? nobody else was doing that. not Motown. not Stax. nobody recording for Atlantic or Muscle Shoals. only James. his own sound, his own band, his own man. is that kind of inspiration divine or extra-terrestrial? is he dead or just called back to the Mothership?

wherever his spirit came from, it inhabited the body of a man born black and poor in a country and time when such characteristics didn’t hold much promise for a prosperous life. they still don’t. but James, by pure force of will, personality, and talent claimed his place in this world - demanded it, actually – and then changed the culture forever by changing the way humans all over this planet create and communicate through music. he’s not alone in this. Ray Charles did it. Muddy Waters, too. but even as the giants they were, i don’t think they impacted music as profoundly as James.

the music…the music….the music…..…

………..Sex Machine. Super Bad. Soul Power. The Payback. I Don’t Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing. Hot Pants. Give It Up or Turnit A Loose. Get On The Good Foot. Make It Funky. I’m A Greedy Man……..there should be an exclamation point after every title. James screamed these words at us; and sometimes, he just screamed. what was that about, anyway? why was that brotha always screaming? i just enjoyed it on a primal, and yes, humorous, level, until i saw JB talking about it in a documentary. he said there are only two reasons why a man screams – mental pain or physical pain. so that’s what he was showing us, even in all those songs that make us dance, and feel happy and strong. he was letting us know -- this comes from pain. and that’s why his funk is deeper. and his scream is poetry.

so many memories flood my mind….playing his records for my high-school girlfriend and her commenting “it’s just the same thing over and over again” and me saying, “that’s the point!”; my guitar teacher showing me the "James Brown" chord when i asked him to teach me “Sex Machine” – and i’ve worked that D9 to death ever since; the first time i saw him live at the Apollo in ’87, utterly caught up in the mythology of the man and the venue; playing his “In The Jungle Groove” cd for the first time – it began with “It’s A New Day,” and for a second, i wasn’t sure if my body could stand that much funk; plastering the stockroom where i worked with “Free James Brown” stickers when he was serving jail-time in the late 80's, and, when i left the job, receiving a cake with “Free James Brown” written in icing; the moments when i hear him unexpectedly – on the street or in a store – and i’m stopped cold as if i’m encountering that sound for the first time; the times i watched a beautiful friend move to his music...she might’ve been dancing, she might’ve been putting on her make-up…and i realized she and the music were the same, and i thought “this is perfection...”

because of James, i have Funkadelic, Bootsy Collins, Sly Stone, Prince, Betty Davis, Fela Kuti, Public Enemy, Eric B. & Rakim, and so many more artists who make this existence somewhat bearable.

because of James, i have the friends i do; because we found each other through the Funk. i’ve gotten a few calls from them today; just sharing some love and showing some props for JB. plus they all know he’s my musical daddy, so they’re reaching out on a personal level – seeing if i’m “okay.” but it’s not like i lost my real daddy. i did that already – i know the difference. James will still be in my life the way he’s always been – bringing me the Funk. making me feel bold. strong. crazy.

like the baddest muthafucka ever.

* Seeing and hearing JB is more important than reading about him. Here are some favorites:

Paris 1971 -- Sex Machine

Mother Popcorn (60s)

Boston 1968 There Was A Time

Paris 1971 -- Brother Rapp/Ain't It Funky

Sex Machine/Soul Power

"WHEN I THINK OF FULTON STREET..." (Leschea)

Memories of Beat Street Records (1984-2006)

I just heard about this yesterday (thanks for bringing my attention to it, Jose), but apparently the store shut down back in October. In my late-90s vinyl-fiend days, I'd spend hours scanning the endless racks of wax in the legendary cavernous basement in downtown Brooklyn's Fulton Mall. Beat Street was the place to go for hip-hop 12"s. There was always a live DJ (usually someone named Goldfinger) and if you were anywhere near the speakers, the volume was deafening. Of course, it wasn't uncommon to also see lots of famous New York DJs shopping in the store.

You can look at Beat Street's sad closing through a variety of lenses. Of course, like Tower Records, it's one more casualty of the digital age. Some are also seeing it as symbolic of the death of vinyl. But most interesting to me is a non-musical angle: what it means for the future of downtown Brooklyn and Fulton Mall in particular.

The big news for the borough this week was the state's approval of the massive, controversial Atlantic Yards development which includes a basketball arena for the Nets and huge, corporate towers completely out of scale with the surrounding brownstone neighborhoods. Opponents have been challenging the project for the past few years, and the story has generated a great deal of press during this time.

But Atlantic Yards is just one of many gentrification battles being waged in Brooklyn. There is lots of pressure on nearby Fulton Mall to adapt in order to appeal to the more and more affluent residents streaming into the neighboring districts. In other words, goodbye Beat Street, hello Starbucks!

For those of you who've never been to Fulton Mall, let me set the scene. It is not a mall in the typical suburban American sense; it's not an indoor mall, but rather a bustling outdoor shopping strip. Lots of jewelry stores, discount clothing stores, etc. And a mostly black and Latino clientele who come from all over Brooklyn -- but remarkably few shoppers from right next door (Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill).

So, on the surface, it sounds like the standard New York gentrification trajectory. Rich, white people move in, change the character of the place, make it more desirable, and thus bring more business to the neighborhood. But here's the thing: Fulton Mall does an amazing business as is! According to the New York Times, "it draws 100,000 shoppers each day, rings up more than $100 million in annual sales and commands rents of up to $250 a square foot, among the highest of any retail district in the city." So if it's doing so well, what's the problem?!

Read more about the Beat Street news here...
Daily News

Brooklyn Record
Idolator

And read about Fulton Street here...
New York Times

* FYI, the title of this post, "When I Think of Fulton Street," comes from the chorus to a Blige-esque mid-90s pop gem by Brooklyn singer Leschea, who was part of Masta Ace Incorporated, along with the Juice Crew vet as well as Lord Digga and Paula Perry.

MY TOP 10 OF 2006

1. Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere
2. Ghostface – Fishscale
3. Clipse – Hell Hath No Fury. Maybe I'm ranking this so high because it just came out and I'm loving it at the moment, but the combination of the Neptunes' minimal beats and Pusha & Malice's hard, cold rhymes makes for one of the best, darkest rap albums since Cuban Linx.
4. Roots – Game Theory
5. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
6. Outkast – Idlewild soundtrack. I haven't seen this on many people's lists, and certainly it was a disappointment after Kast's amazing winning streak that peaked with Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. But I continue to listen to the record, from start to finish, and enjoy it more and more. Judged on its own merits, it's an excellent release.
7. Lupe Fiasco – Food & Liquor
8. Amy Winehouse – Back to Black. Another one I'm loving at the moment. This record is so accessible, your grandmother would love it (except for all the sex & drug references). The music sounds like classic Motown -- it was produced by Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson, both in top form in a retro style -- and Winehouse is hugely appealing.
9. Beck – The Information
10. Easy Star All-Stars – Radiodread

* Haven’t heard Nas' Hip-Hop Is Dead yet.

“Though she isn’t in my top 10, still she is on my chart” (Gregory Isaacs):
Bob Dylan – Modern Times
Jay-Z – Kingdome Come
Lily Allen – Alright, Still
John Legend – Once Again
Dave Chappelle’s Block Party soundtrack
Flaming Lips – At War With the Mystics
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Show Your Bones
Cat Power – The Greatest
Prince – 3121
Dudley Perkins – Expressions (2012 AU)

One of the most exciting musical realizations I had this year was that there is a good amount of interesting retro, neo-funk/soul type shit out there, on labels like Brooklyn’s Daptone Records (home of the incomparable Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, as well as the Budos Band and others), and most of all, on SF’s long-standing Ubiquity.

This year alone, Ubiquity put out some incredible releases in this vein, including NOMO’s New Tones, Quantic’s An Announcement to Answer, and Spanky Wilson & The Quantic Soul Orchestra’s I’m Thankful. (I also enjoyed Owusu & Hannibal’s Living With... and Radio Citizen’s Berlin Serengeti.) What a year for Ubiquity! Virtually everything they put out is worth hearing. They are also home to the obscure but brilliant Darondo, who has been touted by Giles Peterson, Oliver Wang, and others; this year the label collected and rereleased his early 70s work as Let My People Go and the Legs EP.

Last but not least, speaking of Oliver Wang, his must-read Soul Sides blog hipped me to the fantastic Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators’ Keep Reachin’ Up.

Top 5 Reissues:
1.) Aretha Franklin – Live at the Fillmore West
2.) Kashmere Stage Band – Texas Thunder Soul, 1968-1974
3.) Massive Attack – Collected
4.) Good God! A Gospel Funk Compilation
5.) Jamaica to Toronto: Soul, Funk and Reggae 1967-1974

Favorite Mixtape:
Sean J Period – The Best of the Roots. If J Period's name sounds familiar, it's probably because the Brooklynite produced some classic NYC hip-hop in the late 90's. (He even had a few joints on the Blackstar album.) These days, I'm loving the guy's mixtapes. Very creative. He also did a Best of Lauryn Hill that showcased her MC skills and reminded me how nice she used to be on the mic. No one needed to remind me of Black Thought's skills but, given Thought's shadowy demeanor and low profile (?uest is really the leader of the group), I like how J Period focuses on him rather than the band. The CD should really be called The Best of Black Thought. The first few tracks are epic: Thought spitting over Jay-Z's "PSA," which segues into a Malcolm X speech, and then into the Beatles' "Come Together"!

20 Favorite Songs:
* I tried to avoid the super-obvious here. Of course, I love “Crazy” and “Kick Push” as much as everyone else.

Meet Me in the City -- Black Keys (from Chulahoma EP)
High and Dry – Pete Kuzma feat. Bilal (from Exit Music: Songs for Radio Heads)
Just – Mark Ronson feat. Alex Greenwald (from Exit Music: Songs for Radio Heads)
These Streets – Tanya Stephens (from Rebelution)
Game Theory – Roots (from Game Theory)
A Certain Romance – Arctic Monkeys (from Whatever You Say I Am…)
Ghetto Story – Cham (from Ghetto Story)
Baby Tonight – Bitty McLean (from Reggae Gold 2006)
Youths Dem Cold -- Richie Spice (from Reggae Gold 2006)
Then and Now – Masta Killa feat. his son & nephews (from Made in Brooklyn)
Coffee Cold – Oh No feat. Fergus Macroy (from Exodus from Unheard Rhythms)
Nightmares – Clipse feat. Bilal (from Hell Hath No Fury)
Smile – Lily Allen (from Alright, Still). From the first time I heard this, I couldn’t help loving it. That cute girly British voice singing, “When you first left me, I was wanting more, but you were fucking that girl next door.” LOL.
Vein of Stars – Flaming Lips (from At War With the Mystics)
Phenomena – Yeah Yeah Yeahs (from Show Your Bones)
Monkey Suite – Madvillain (from Chrome Children)
What Now – Aloe Blacc (from Chrome Children)
Heaven – John Legend (from Once Again)
What’s Happening, Brother? – Dirty Dozen Brass Band feat. Bettye Lavette (from What’s Goin’ On)
Who Cares? -- Gnarls Barkley (from St. Elsewhere)

RIP: Billy Preston, J Dilla, Joseph Hill of the classic reggae group Culture, Arthur Lee of Love, Desmond Dekker, Syd Barrett, three (!) seminal Atlantic Records figures (Ahmet Ertegun, Arif Mardin, and Ruth Brown), Lou Rawls, Gerald LeVert, Wilson Pickett, Ali Farka Toure, Professor X of X-Clan

Happy New Year, everyone. Here's to lots more tasty biscuits next year. Thanks for reading in 06. Hope you've enjoyed.

I'M BACK!

Hey y'all, sorry for going AWOL. Just got back from an amazing few weeks in South Africa. Among the highlights of my trip was seeing Hugh Masekela perform on a gorgeous, rocky beach in Cape Town in the late-afternoon sun to a very small but energetic crowd. The music was electrifying. The vibe was joyful and the whole scene gave me, as an outsider, an exciting glimpse of what the new South Africa looks like. (Or rather, what a a particular multi-racial, middle-class segment looks like, but more on that later.) Check out the great pics my wife took...

The sound of Masekela's trumpet, and his voice, are very close to my heart. When I was a little kid in Seattle, there was always South African music playing in my house. My parents are from SA, though they left in the Sixties. So I was exposed to a lot of stuff like Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) and the soundtrack to the musical King Kong. Not so much Hugh, but by the time a pal in college hipped me to Masekela's 60s work, The Lasting Impressions of Ooga Booga, my ears were already open to South African jazz.

The beach where the concert was held is called Oudekraal, just south of Camps Bay on the Atlantic Seaboard. Those majestic mountains in the background are known as the Twelve Disciples.

The crowd was feeling it! I was happy to see that it was a mostly black and "coloured" audience. I had only been in the country for a few days at this point, and I was still trying to make sense of the place. (Cape Town is a majority "coloured" city: 48% "coloured," 31% black, and 18% white. Whereas South Africa as a whole is about 80% black.) A couple of days earlier, we went to another concert in a nearby wine town called Stellenbosch -- singer/songwriter Vusi Mahlasela and multi-racial pop outfit Freshly Ground -- and the crowd was much more white. Also, according to an article I read in the Mail & Guardian, the very popular outdoor concert series at Kirstenbosch, South Africa's premier Botanical Gardens, draws remarkably few non-white faces.

Wandering the city centre or the waterfront, you see people of all races -- it's not that different than New York. But the reality is that the vast majority of the city's non-white population live in grinding poverty in Cape Flats townships like Langa, Nyanga, Guguletu, and Khayelitsha. And the R140 ($20) or so that I paid for the concert ticket is an unimaginable luxury to most Cape Town residents.

It's an incredibly complex and interesting and heartbreaking and inspiring place, and I am still trying to digest it all. Hope you enjoy these photos of the Masekela show, courtesy of Mrs. Biscuits...

Lots of pretty ladies in South Africa...