Brides of Funkenstein - Never Buy Texas from a Cowboy
Brides of Funkenstein - Funk Or Walk
For a brief period in the early 80s there were a couple of men that used to sell imported American soul, funk and disco cut-outs from the steps of the Astoria Theatre on Charing Cross Road for £1 / £1.50 a go. On my 21st birthday my then girlfriend bought me the first three Bootsy solo albums, One Nation Under A Groove, The Clones of Dr Funkenstein and these two classics. Astonishing bargains even for the time and I still have them all on my shelf despite perennial sell-offs of chunks of my collection to deal with HMRC debts and such like. Witty, out-on-a-sonic-limb disco funk futurism with far fewer flabby, under-worked / over-extended bits than your average late 70s Clinton associated release. More blurred lines between synths and guitars than Hammer and Beck or Hammer and Bolin. What Labelle might have sounded like if they had played up to their brilliant sci-fi image.
Lou Reed & Metallica - Lulu
This is the perfect album to have to hand if you have builders next door, road works outside or car alarms going off down the street on a regular basis. Pretty much any urban noise, however grating or unmusical fits right in. That alone is a big reason to pick this up for £3 or whatever it is selling for these days and, although it has its longeurs, anyone who says this is Lou's worst record probably didn't buy Growing Up In Public, Metal Machine Music or Rock n Roll Heart with money they actually went out and earned for themselves.
Kris Kristofferson - Border Lord
Various - Lazarus
Prince - LotusFlow3r
Daryl Hall & John Oates - War Babies
5th Dimension - Up, Up and Away (The Definitive Collection - Remastered 1997)
Do What You Want, Be What You Are: The Music Of Daryl Hall & John Oates
Cerrone I, II & III
Tony Childs - The Woman's Boat
Steve Hillage - L
ZZ Top _ Tejas (70s mix)
Barry White - All Time Greatest Hits
Bruce Springsteen - The Promise
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band - s/t
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band - Meets King Penett
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band - Goes To Washington
Kid Creole and the Coconuts - Off The Coast Of Me
Kid Creole and the Coconuts - Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places
Kid Creole and the Coconuts - Tropical Gangsters
Various - Going Places : The August Darnell Years (1976-1983)
Various - Mutant Disco Volume 1
Not even a vivid memory of Flick Colby's Zoo hoofing their way through Stool Pigeon on Top Of The Pops can dissuade me as to August Darnell's untrammelled genius. Gloriously silly heartbreaker ballads cheek by jowl with Latin flavoured floor-fillers (without sickly sweet SalSoul additives), a splash of Porter, Runyon and Fitzgerald with a dash of Ellington, Calloway and Louis Prima. All transplanted to post bankruptcy 70s New York and underpinned by one of the all time great pop / soul bass players. Even if you blame Darnell's influence for Mel & Kim, Modern Romance, Blue Rondo AND Bananarama (some legacy that) each of these albums is an endlessly entertaining, genre-bending hymn to urban multi-culturalism. The sort of thing we could do with a lot more of right now. The Savannah Band albums are especially peculiar - it's often as if the band is playing in the next room while you are having the melodies dripped into your ear by a slightly off pitch and off kilter lead singer who doesn't know the songs and is free associating the lyrics as she goes. It's a not-quite-right parallel universe exercise in nostalgia like something created on the Enterprise holodeck.
