various artists - Experienced! Mojo Presents 15 Tracks Inspired By The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Jimi Hendrix was my first musical obsession. Sure, there was the "Top Gun" soundtrack, populated with Giorgio Moroder and Harold Faltermeyer production, which came along with my first boombox on my 10th birthday. But the purple cover of "The Essential Jimi Hendrix" became burned into my mind when I first found it in my parents' record collection. I remember taking my grass cutting money to buy blank tapes so I could dub a copy to listen to while mowing more grass. I started finding Hendrix's posthumous Reprise releases, produced with overdubbing by Alan Douglas, in cutout bins. So I snapped them up. In 1993, MCA gained the catalog in the States, bringing a fresh remastering to the three Jimi Hendrix Experience releases and adding a compilation of remastered "Blues" tracks. I gobbled them all up. By then, my musical pallet had grown. But by the time I moved to Baltimore in 1994, I was still a sucker for any out of print Hendrix record I could lay paws on.

We all move on, right? Every piece of vinyl, every tape on Reprise, they've all gone to other collections over the years. I just didn't care as much any more, and there were hardcore shows to go to and girls to impress and Impulse reissues to track down. But Jimi, the god who made magic with a guitar, who said he hailed from Seattle but more like came from Neptune; he still had a place in my heart. So that's why this Mojo Monday is for "Experienced!" You get Hendrix-penned songs, his contemporaries (the John McLaughlin track is a favorite), and his descendents, all in one package.

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Heavy Soul

Pardon the terse blogging today. I've had this shit settle into my chest for two weeks now. She's instructing me to hustle off to bed. The missus sez, "you're not a newspaper. You're sick."

So here's a 15-track compendium of funk and soul. Anything that leads off with Betty Davis and Funkadelic should be able help me expectorate the mucus in my lungs. It's time to bust out the funk.

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various artists - Classic Jazz Funk Volume One

The whole point of this blog is to share the out-of-print, the cheaply-acquired, the nearly-forgotten. This, the first of three volumes of MVP/React's Classic Jazz Funk series, falls under the the third category.

And, by that, I don't mean the artists appearing herein. I assume you can stream Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island" or Roy Ayers' "Running Away" just about anywhere, so the out-of-print part doesn't really apply. As for cheaply acquired? Well, I bit the bullet, having already owned and shared copies of Volumes Two & Three, and plunked down $3.99 plus shipping for this copy. Not quite the dollar bin fare I live to share here, although it's less than I ever spent seeing Fugazi, so there you go.

No, it's the nearly-forgotten that I think best applies here. Are the crate diggers still on the hunt for old Flying Dutchman pressings? What do the kids know about Tom Browne? Ronnie Laws? Shit, do they even fuck with George Benson? Is Groove Holmes just a deep cut Beastie Boys reference to folks today?

Look, it is geting hot as hell out here. Even the PNW was nearing 90 this weekend. But when the darkness comes around 9pm these days, this is the perfect cooldown soundtrack, a perfect play at the pool to get the people amorous and have the trainspotters say, "oh, shit, I know that sample!"

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various artists - Si, Para Usted (The Funky Beats Of Revolutionary Cuba, Volume One)

It wasn't some great stretch of the imagination to see this one available online for a few cents and say, "yeah, this is going to be good as hell." Light In The Attic would reissue this one on vinyl a few years later, but this rip comes from the original 2006 Canadian CD release, and its a pretty rad sampling of Cuban "contemporary" music from the 60s and 70s. Less Buena Vista Social Club, more Fania brewed extra strong, like a black cup of Cuban coffee.

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various artists - Mojo Presents: James Brown's Funky Summer

I mean, May 22nd is close enough to summer that I don't feel weird posting this one.

Here's a welcome soundtrack for Memorial Day weekend, which every red-blooded American agrees is the start to pool season and a proper time start wearing white shoes. You will get those shoes awful dirty as you shake ass to the hot beats contained herein, but it's worth it, I assure you. And since we've really been breaking the balls of the rest of the world, I invite those not native to this land to also cut a rug. Pretend its Kristi Noem's face you're dancing on...it's feels good!

Get off on the good foot, as the Godfather himself would suggest.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Stooges Jukebox

I have nothing clever or interesting to offer regarding this comp, compiled by Iggy Pop himself and offered up by Mojo back in Twenty Aught Seven. It's just good shit, and I missed a deadliine a couple days ago on account of exhaustion and a binge on Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, so I know I need to bring the good shit.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: The Bad Seeds Jukebox

This one's been sitting in my Kraken folder since last September. I had initially intended to dash off fifty words about this; "it was compiled 10 years ago by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, it has a bunch of weird shit on it, blah, blah, blah." But something told me, "hold back for a laundry day. Listen to this on random. Throw the tracks in with a bunch of your regular tunes."

So I did. And gratefully so.

Other than the curators, I grabbed this initially because it had tracks from Adrian Younge (who I've heard and loved), Betty Davis (ditto), and Karen Dalton (who I'd heard of, but never heard). And there were no surprises there; everything I'd heard about Karen Dalton was, if anything, understated, and I rushed out to cop her two initial releases.

It was the unfamiliar that knocked me for six, especially when it was slotted in between a Get Up Kids track and some classic Adam & the Ants. The likes of Moondog and  Giorgos Xylouris were revelatory; "Else Torp singing Arvo Part" is a sentence that is almost unfair in its simplicity, for how powerful a track it is. Even songs from Thurston Moore and Bill Callahan are almost gobsmacking in their strength. It's enough to make me reevaluate how I feel about those artists.

(Hint: I wasn't a fan.)

So, yeah, this has been on my phone for about five months now, on account of how it inspires me to listen broadly and experience sound differently.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Change The Beat

The subtitle here is "14 Tracks From Madonna's New York Scene", which, if it's not a good selling point for ya, then, homey, you've come to the wrong place.

Herein is a sampling of what you might find playing in the DJ booth at Danceteria, back when Ms. Ciccone was still modeling and working through demos of her first record. My pockets are a bit light and my septum a bit fragile for the sort of pharmaceutical intake these jams call for, but I'm not certain that's even necessary to appreciate the likes of ESG, Delta 5, Judy Nylon, and Funkadelic all showing up to the same party.

It's just good jams for 68 minutes. And who amongst us is having too great a life to want that?

Cool cover photo, too.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Purple Soul

I think I snagged this mainly because it has Arabian Prince and Arthur Russell tracks I hadn't heard before. Well, that, and it was a buck. It's a lot of Prince-inspired and Prince-adjacent R&B; everything from Toro Y Moi to Poliça to a sampling of the Stones Throw catalog. And if it seems like I'm reaching for commentary or trenchant insight, well, it's because this is a world of music I always enjoy, but am not particularly educated in...certainly not to same degree I am on punk or hardcore or free jazz. I sound dumb enough writing about music I know a lot about; no need to sound below stupid.

Discogs

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various artists - Classic Jazz Funk Volume Two

I don't love this as much as I do Volume 3, but I do dig this. There's some good-ass Blue Note catalog here (Grant Green, Lou Donaldson, Donald Byrd), an all-time slammer from Roy Ayers, and some early period Kool & The Gang. Esther Phillips leads things off with her version of Gil-Scott Heron's "Home Is Where The Hatred Is"; Ramsey Lewis covers Bob Dylan, and Benny Golson wraps things up with an update to his standard "Killer Joe".

Everything here slaps hard, is what I'm saying.

Discogs

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Binky Griptite's GhettoFunkPowerHour

Uggh. It's been a tough week to sit down and write. An eff ton of admin will really dampen your desire to hop on a computer. But here I am; sitting up in the middle of the night, ready to kick you some jams.

"Binky Griptite's GhettoFunkPowerHour" made its way to me via my copy of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings' "100 Days, 100 Nights". I wasn't expecting an extra dose of soul, but far be it for me to turn down 58 minutes and 2 seconds of mixtape goodness taken from the Daptone Records catalog. Slapped together by Dap-King/Antibalas/Amy Winehouse guitarist Binky Griptite, this is the sort of thing that I'll always welcome as a bonus. Or, hell, just post one up once a year on Bandcamp or something.

Discogs

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Deep Throat Anthology, Parts I & II

Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems in Deep Throat (Gerard Diamano, 1972)

I've always been drawn to the feature-length pornography of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, aka The Golden Age of Porn. It's not necessarily because of a prurient interest (although I'm not just reading Playboy for the articles, if you know what I mean). I'm interested in it for the same reasons I like watching American International movies from the same period, or listening to lo-fi, limited edition cassettes, or finding yellowing paperbacks at the bottom of a box. It's all low culture shaping high culture; in this case, it's the start of a sex-positive culture.

Also, the music slaps.

I mean, when you're describing makin' LUV to your honored partner, doesn't "BOW WOW CHICKA WOW WOW" come to mind, if not get verbalized? Even if you don't engage with hardcore pornography, the soundtracks are part of our cultural language. They were made by under-recognized composers, who often filled the role as performer. AND they were made under less-than-optimal circumstances: sometimes written and recorded within the space of one or two days.

The soundtracks to Deep Throat and Deep Throat Part II are infinitely interesting to me, and should intrigue you as well. There is little to no background available on the recordings from Deep Throat, due in great part to the U.S. government having seized the master tapes during their 1976 Memphis obscenity prosecution. So no one is quite sure who recorded what, who wrote the score...nothing. It was also a press-only giveaway, so the original pressing is worth a pretty penny.

The soundtrack for Deep Throat Part II, the R-rated sequel released in 1974, is more documented. Kenny Vance, working under the pseudonym T.J. Stone, put together an outstanding slab of sleaze soul. The two tracks featuring vocals from Laura Greene are particularly good. The soundtrack, along with lead single "She's Got To Have It", were the lead releases from Bryan Records, the label wing of noted mob-owned film distributor Bryanston Distributing Company. Bryanston, as we all know, was the short-lived distributor of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dark Star, The Way of the Dragon, and the Andy Warhol/Paul Morrissey films Blood for Dracula and Flesh for Frankenstein.

Look, this isn't my favorite porno soundtrack (that would be Patrick Cowley's Fox Movies work...duh), but it's more than just a curiosity. Give it a listen.

Discogs

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