Guest Post Vincent from Fufu Stew- C is for Cratedigger

Any reader of this little blog will be familiar with both Vincent and his blog fufu stew. Vincent has put together a two part Holiday weekend mix where one part is posted on cratedigger and the other is posted on his blog.

Here is a link to the part of the mix on Fufu Stew:

Warmed over leftovers

I am very honored to have the chance to share the fruits of Vincent's cratedigging efforts. I will let Vincent take over from here.

Stay cool with the soul and funky sounds of DJ SOUL Chef!!!

Hello, kiddies.

Here I am in in your backyard, armed with a massive stack of 45 rpm goodness. I've never been to Chicago, but if I do get the chance, I know where to go first. Thank you Rich for having me aboard. If you Cratedigger fans had a chance to pick up on what I put down over at Souled On Music, then you know where my head is right now. This is the second in a series of mixes where I will attempt to use all six keys of the scale on a standard keyboard. For reasons that should be rather apparent, this one focuses on the key of "C". It's a gentle blend of sweet Northern and Southern soul, plus plenty of funky heat. After having blasted it on my iPod for the past couple of days, I decided that it was done just right and ready to serve, so without further ado, here we go...

01 Here Comes The Judge-Shorty Long (Soul)
02 Hunk Of Funk-Gene Dozier & The Brotherhood (Minit)
03 (I Wanna) Testify-The Parliaments (Revilot)
04 Bingo-G.T.+4 (The Groovy Label)
05 Do It To It-Bird Rollins Featuring The New Jersey Burners (Calla)
06 Cool Broadway-The Fantastic Johnny C (Phil L.A. Of Soul)
07 Hogwash-Earnest Jackson (Stone)
08 Hot Butter N All-Lou Courtney (Hurdy Gurdy)
09 Damph F'aint-The Herb Johnson Settlement (Toxsan)
10 I Can't Get Next To You-Mongo Santamaria (Atlantic)
11 If I Had A Hammer-Ace Cannon (Hi)
12 I Likes To Do It-The Peoples Choice (Phil L.A. Of Soul)
13 Leroy Is In The Army-Jimmy Castor (Smash)
14 Nothing You Can Do-Wilson Pickett (Atlantic)
15 Saturday Night Fish Fry-The Coasters (Atco)
16 Tip Toe-Robert Parker (NOLA)
17 Everyting's Hunky Dory-Billy Harner (V-Tone)
18 You Ain't Too Cool-Cash McCall (Thomas)
19 Gettin' Away-Cliff Nobles & Co. (Phil L.A. Of Soul)
20 Here Comes The Meter Man-The Meters (Josie)
21 Serve 'Em-Madhouse (Today)
22 Get Down People-The Fabulous Counts (Moira)
23 Crazy Legs-Donald Austin (Eastbound)
24 Swim Pts. 1&2-Bobby Freeman (Autumn)
25 Wild Little Tiger-The Isley Brothers (Atlantic)
26 One Eye Open-Maskman & The Agents (Dynamo)
27 Alvin's Bag-Alvin Cash (Toddlin' Town)
28 Let's Go Get Stoned-James Brown (Smash)

I can't stress enough how much of a pleasure it is to be able to join in with all of these great blogs and share my love for the timely sport of crate digging. I have learned so much in such a short amount of time, not to mention the practice I've been getting in making these mixes with the mighty Cakewalk Pyro software. I'll be back at it again real soon. I hope you will all join me for the ride. Have a great weekend, have fun and as always, be safe.

Peace and blessings.

Please download and enjoy "C Is For Cratedigger", an .mp3 file, 69 MB.

Party in Pilsen 82507

My buddy Sloth, invited me to go to a party with him in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. I have enjoyed what limited exposure that I have had with that neighborhood. so I agreed.

This was a house party with a professional PA, 1200s, the works. Also it was a late night, as the shindig was due to start at 11PM. There were a number of DJs scheduled to perform, including Alexander, Slow Children and Ed DMX from the UK was to headline.

The house had a killer pro PA system, it was loud as hell and very clear. There were also a couple of projectors illuminating the space with various video and images mixed on a macbook. Note the figure shadowed above, bathed in cool blue hues... Here is Ed DMX a banging away on his Roland and other contraptions.

In the background you can see the video/image mixer at the macbook projection deck...

All in all a cool evening. The music itself was pretty far from funky. I couldn't venture to say what sort of stuff they were spinning.

I did enjoy a gent named Chris who was very proficient on the decks, and used some old school rap to do fast cuts from whatever other music was spinning on the other platter.

I think that I would like to spin a set next time and get the kids moving to some music that is more my flavor.

Thanks for the good times.

Another Guest mix: DJ Blueprint from this is tomorrow

If you are down with the soul and funk blogosphere, then surely you are aware of this is tomorrow, which happens to be one of my faves.

DJ Blueprint, the proprietor of this is tomorrow put together a tight 30 minute funk work out set for cratedigger.

I am pleased to present:

30 min funk workout 4
tracklist:
1. incomparable seven - funky grand paw part 1 (top hit)
2. landlord & tennants - sagittarius part 1 (coach)
3. soul patrol - don't knock the cop (zuma)
4. communicators & black experience band - is it funky enough?
(duplex)
5. the marlboro men - (ride on) iron horse (nite beat)
6. sammy gordon & the hiphuggers - upstairs on boston road part 1
(archives)
7. house guests - my mind set me free part 1 (house guests)
8. tommy bass - (i can't help it baby) this is my thing (soulful)
9. city council ltd. - when you git through wit it put it back (gt
graytom)
10. mary davis - danger! (playboy at work) (conclave)
11. con-funk-shun - clique (fretone)

Please download 30 min workout 4.

Enjoy.

SOULMAN 2001 SPACED ODDITIES PT. 2

Phill over at thatrealschitt has posted the second half of his 2001 Spaced Oddities.

I dug the first half and my trip out of NYC yesterday was put to a most excellent groove to the recently posted second half.

Go check it out.

Link

RB is a guest selecter at this is tomorrow

this is tomorrow blog is celebrating its' first birthday by inviting guest selectors to post mixes.

I am in awe of the company that I share in this honor. Larry from funky16corners and Vincent from Fufu Stew have already posted their mixes. I visited the Colonel's well of dub treats for the final time for the mix I made for this is tomorrow. The final installment of the Colonel dub mixes is called, The Colonel's Dubquarters (edit.)

Dig & enjoy, and congrats on one year DJ Blueprint!

Biking in Gotham

I had the chance to take my first bike ride in Manhattan this morning. How awesome!

My hotel had a Puma folding bike, pictured above, that was available for riding purposes. The bike itself was pretty cool. It is a single speed, kind of a cross between a large bmx and a mountain bike. Despite the lack of a downtube, the frame felt pretty stiff under my girth. I have never ridden a bike that has been equipped with disc brakes. The brakes were perfect for the Union Square streets.

I set off from 17th St and Union Square at about 5:55 this morning and headed west towards the Hudson and the bike path that follows it. The ride along 17th was OK, I only tried to catch onto one vehicle.

Towards the end of this western jaunt, I hit a very old stretch of street that was actually cobbles, and here the wide tires were a blessing. Up off the saddle and the disc brakes killed it.

Heading south towards the Battery, I saw the site that used to have the Twin Towers on it. That was a trip. Even the path was a bit out of sorts at this point. Eieree site, never forget and all that.

Continuing on south, I hit the Battery and looked off to the south and got a good sight line on both Ellis Island and The Statue. The path sort of petered out there and I headed east along Broad Street for a few blocks. Around the bottom of the island, I caught up again with the path/ boardwalk. Heading north now, I was between the FDR and The East River. A bit further, I passed Pier 16, where I caught the Devotchka show a few weeks back at the SchniederTent Theatre, a venue that I recommend highly.

I continued in a northerly direction, passing the Houston bridge, 10th St bridge, etc. At 17th (?) and Ave C, I was able to go under the FDR. I ended up in a project looking group of brown high rises, that looked like a perfect backdrop for a breakin' throw down back in the day, but are seeing more yuppified times now.

After spinning through there a bit, I caught 12th St and headed west until I hit 1st Ave where I headed north. Once at 17th, I headed west back to my start at 17th and Union Square.

It was one of the best rides of the summer so far. 55 minutes of prime rolling in Gotham.

Rockit Scientist Records-NYC

I had a long day at the office in Gotham, and my dinner plans changed.
So what to do? I decided to take a little hike a bit south and a bit east over to the new Disney Land that is The East Village.

As I ventured a bit, I came upon St Mark’s Place. In the back of my mind, I remembered that there was a record store that has been advertising in Ugly Things for 12 years or so. I could picture the ad, but could not remember the store.

On the south side of the street, I saw Kim’s Video, which is the most absolute sickest video store that I have ever seen. It has at least 2 levels, and to be honest, since I can only focus on one collecting addiction at a time, I just bypassed looking at all the video and DVDs, and went up straight to the back of the second floor to the vinyl section. I found a couple of things, but when I looked at the condition, missing the paper insert, general wear, etc, I could not pull the trigger on a few $6.99 records.

As I left Kim’s, the name of the record store came to mind—Rockit Scientist.

I went about another half block or so, and I saw Rockit on the north side of the street. It is a couple of steps down off the sidewalk. When, I walked in, I was taken aback. This is a place of musical nirvana. On the right side of the store there are racks from floor to ceiling, filled with cds that range from soul to funk to 60s garage, psych and cool music of all stripes. Along the left side of the store is the traditional record store raised counter of yore, featuring various record related ephemera and an older Technics turntable. Moving towards the back, past the basement stairs, there is a rack of LPs on the left and LPs on the right. Going up the walls and continuing onto the ceiling there are other records- mainly mid value 45s. The record explorer needs to be careful to not stub your toes on the budget LP crates that sit in front of the other racks.

I found a box of LPs titled, James Brown. Bingo. I looked through the box a bit and came up with a sealed copy of Sho is Funky Down Here priced at $9.99. The record is marked as all instrumental. “James Brown plays and directs the James Brown Band.” Done.

Frankly, I was a bit overwhelmed at the depth and breadth of the music on offer in this tiny store. I struck up a conversation with Robert (?) the proprietor. We discussed all manner of music and musicology. This guy knows his stuff and knew many of the old garage folks from whom I have purchased records, reissues, reviewed their releases, or even interviewed- Crypt Records, Norton Records, Mop Top Mike, etc. over the years.

I remembered something that I was interested in getting a copy of and asked for a recommendation of some Gil Scott Heron. I picked up an LP compilation of Gil Scott Heron called The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. I can’t wait to hear this one either.

I will definitely be back to visit.

Colonel's Back Again- Murray's Choice Mix

Yes, cratedigger's favorite guest, Colonel, is back with a vengeance with both an aggressive and trance inducing mix called Murray's Choice, fueled by the CDs full of dub and reggae that he sent me.

From his generous gift, I am still reaping the kind mix for you, dear reader.

This mix around, there is some reggae mixed in with the dub. Thematically as well as sonically, Murray's Choice spans many eras. Definitely pack the headphones, G.

Hopefully the sound will rattle your ipod/car doors/house/apartment, like it did the CDHQ.

Download The Colonel's Murray's Choice Mix



Murray's Choice Tracklist:

01 Dangerous Match One Scientist
02 Lamb's Bread Collie Jacob Miller
03 Natty Rebel Uroy
04 Universal Dub J-Boogie
05 Natural Roots Mad Professor
06 King Tubby Meets The Rockers Augustus Pablo
07 Soundclash Dub Syndicate
08 Cool Rockers Lee Scratch Perry
09 Extra Time Five Scientist
10 Dub Organiser Dillinger
11 It Dread Inna The Earth
12 Ecological Dub

Iowahawk's June 2007 video

My buddy Iowahawk has built quite a cool tradition of featuring monthly movies on his blog. The latest installment features hotrods of the friends of Iowahawk.

Remember, race fans, use your rubber!

Been a while... some tunes to tide youse over

I have been away from the Cratedigger homestead all of last week, with nary a chance for digging. In the meantime and in order to keep things interesting, here is a list of interesting mixes put out by other bloggers:

Vincent at Fufu Stew has a new mix called, Fufu Soul Soundcheck. Some great covers are on offer on his mix. Makes me wonder how he has the time to put together so many tough sets.

DJ Dubstrong at Disco Devil has a new dancehall dub mix that I have been listening to today called, Uptown Skank v. 2. He hails from Brasil, so much of the blog is in Portugeuse.

Phill Most Chill at That Real Schitt put out a digital version of his mix called 2001 Spaced Oddities from a few years back of some killer beats and breaks. Here is Side A. It is cool listening. I have much to learn, Grasshopper.

Heavy Soul Brutha Dave from Soul Brutha's Put The needle on the Record has the second installment of his series, Soulbrutha Meets Caplog V. 2 on Mod Radio UK. It is an internet radio show that repeats. Maybe he will post it soon... hint, hint.

Enjoy and support the players above. I am off to Gotham. Hopefully, I will be able to put something together on Friday or over the weekend.

Some hot and weird cars in Mundelein, IL

One of the summer rituals here in the Midwest is to get your car out to the cruise nights. My 66 is not really nice enough to take to one of these events, where lawn chairs and diet pepsi is the norm.

Anyway, I put some high priced high test into the Mustang and was on my way the 12 miles or so to the Mundelein IL Park on Park Cruise Night that occurs once a month during the summer.

This was a 35 Ford Truck that still had an old flathead in it. There was still some original Henry Ford pin striping under the rust and patina. The old guy that owned it was a bit squirrelly, when I spoke with him. I still liked it.
This Mini was pretty cool in British racing green. It might have too many decals and doo dads on it though.
This was a nice Yenko Camaro set up for the strip. I parked right next to it. It was really too nice to put on the strip.
This was an especially clean mid 30s Ford Cabriolet. 35/36? I am not sure but it was so clean that you could eat off of it.
This Camaro was also clean, the stripes on the sides of the car were a nice metal flake. A very nice paint job indeed.

The quote of the evening was, "I didn't realize that cars could be antiques." This was spoken by an 8 year old girl. Some of the people there could have been classified as antiques. I even saw a couple of Outlaws. (They are the ultimate rival bike club of the Hells Angels.)

Hats off to The Colonel-cratedigger guest selector...

A close friend of mine from the way back machine, chose to keep his life much closer to nature than I did after college.

His name is the Colonel. He spends much of his free time climbing mountains and slashing powder on the slopes in the western areas of our grand country.

For the soundtrack to his outdoor pursuits, he is a big reggae and dub fan. I received an unbelievable package in the snail mail from him last week containing a whole grip of cds filled with freaked out tunage.

In honor of this great gift, I have assembled a mix of some of the jamming tunes contained on a few of the cds. Call the Colonel a guest selector, if you will.

As I mentioned, the tracks below were grabbed from cds and NOT vinyl.

ENJOY! And Thanks Colonel.

Download The Colonel's Little Unique Mix



Tracklist

01 Dance of The Vampires Scientist
02 A Useful Version Prince Jammy & The Aggrovators
03 Prince Far-I Bedward Dub Syndicate
04 Alam Dub Bill Laswell & Jah Wobble
05 Dub In The Right Way Soul Syndicate
06 Rude Boy Dub Prince Jammy
07 Drifter Dub King Tubby
08 The Alien Aborts Roots Radics Band
09 Dreader Locks Lee Perry & Junor Byles
10 Kiwi Culture Mad Professor
11 Trinity Dub Massive Attack vs. Mad Professor

CAN

I have a passing interest in Krautrock, but I have to admit I know very little about the entire genre. When I have a chance, I have been taking recommendations from other music heads about their faves.

Using this approach, I have heard some Can, Faust, Gong and I happened across a burn of AR+Machines, which seems to be a Krautrock talisman of some repute, (and non reissued).

I also received via a trade, three full dvds of Krautrock. One of the bands that struck me with both their overt weirdness as well as their ability to rock was Can.

I happened upon a dvd full of live Can recently and this extreme hot weather has put me into an odd mood. Can seems to fit the bill for the 90 degrees and humidity here on the shores of Lake Michigan.

From some cursory internet research, Can was formed as a collective way back in 68. They had their own studio called Inner Space, which seems like a rather non sequitir as their soundscapes that I am hearing are more akin to spacerock, more like a more arty Hawkwind without the preachy scifi baggage of the Hawks. I can also hear elements of the more spacey areas of English artrock, eg. Eno, and possibly 801 without the Manzanera guitar pyrotechnics.

In 1970, Damo Suzuki was discovered on the street performing music and was quickly incorporated into the Can clan as their lead vocalist.

1971 was when Can started gaining some traction with the critics with their release Tago Mago. Ege Bamyasi was put out the next year and contained the track Spoon which oddly enough appears on two of the three of the dvds that I received. Spoon brought them acclaim in a wider arena as it was used as the theme for a film called Das Messer and was Can's first success charting wise.

listening to some of these extended jams, repetition seems to be the modus operandi for the freak factor.

Here is a link to CAN performing Improvisation for the BBC (the BEEB) in 1974. The limited info that I have on the track suggests that this track did not appear on the Peel Sessions CD.



Here is another download link, if the player ain't your bag.

CAN Improvisation

Chicago Critical Mass June 2007 p2

This video clip catches much of the flavor of June's ride.

The 1st part is more of a hosted webtv show discussing Critical Mass affairs.

Check it out.

if the glove don't fit...

If the glove don’t fit- a cratedigger compilation

01 Intro
02 Soul Searchers Funk To The Folks Sussex 517
03 Isley Brothers Don’t Give it Away T Neck 901
04 Dialog
05 Bobby Blue Bland Turn On Your Lovelight Duke 344
06 Clarence Carter Funky Fever Atlantic 2508
07 Dialog
08 Ike & Tina Turner Funkier Thank A Mosquita’s Tweeter Liberty 56216
09 Curley Moore Funky Yeah House of The Fox 1934
10 Dialog
11 Rufus Thomas Do The Double Bump Stax 236
12 Dennis Coffey Scorpio (rb edit) Sussex 226
13 James & Bobby Purify I’m Your Puppet Bell 648
14 James Brown Brother Rapp (pts 1&2) King 6310
15 Dialog
16 Fantastic Johnny C Boogaloo Down Broadway Phil LA of Soul 305
17 Sons of Slum Right On Stax 120 (mono)
18 Dialog
19 Kool & The Gang Funky Stuff Dee-Lite 557(mono)
20 Jimmy Castor Bunch Bertha Butt Boogie (pt 1) Atlantic 3232
21 Outro
22 Funkadelic Loose Booty Westbound 205 (promo)


all of the above tracks were captured from original 45s, gathered in various dusty midwestern locales. no ebay track diggin' whatsoever...

dialog comes from the aip motion picture "abby" starring carol speed and william marshall, which comes from a very old vhs transfer.

Please download if the glove don't fit...



D/L Link

Thanks to Fufu Stew, Fleamarket Funk, Funky 16 Corners, this is tomorrow, and Soul Brotha's Put the Needle in The Groove for inspiration.

Happy 4th. Be safe.

N.B. It appears that the divshare link above is AOK, but the zshare version of the file is shortened. I tried to reupload, but it continues to chop my file in half. There is a save option within Divshare. Sorry about the technical difficulties.

Chicago Critical Mass 062907

One of the best rides of my life?

Really, I went places in the City of Chicago, on a bike with roughly 800 of my closest friends, that I have never seen , much less traveled in a car or any other vehicle for that matter. But to be on a bike on a summer Friday night when the air temp was in the 60s- it couldn't have been more perfect.

Below is a picture of a mcdonald'$ on Cermak, under the American flag. I think the shot sums it all up- you have a ton of people on bikes, riding by a mcd'$ and a Coke sign above the tunnel. Riding up the Wild West Side, here is a shot that also captures the scenery and mood. Picture scenes such as this, replete with alternately Roger & The Gypsies and Curtis Mayfield blasting on the mobile bike soundsystems-loud. The residents, and the undercover police threw a lot of high signs and raise the roof gestures. They looked as if they were watching a procession of Martians. The shorty shaking it ten feet off the ground-safety be damned- was definitely feeling it.

I really have to give props to the mobile sound system DJ who was playing Chitown Homeboy #1, Mr. Mayfield. The scenery matched up with the anti-drug lyrical content perfectly. RIP Curtis.
This shot is just for looks, as I think it looks awesome. That tunnel on Damen on the South Side is like a block long, then there is a break and then it continues for another block. In a word, "Whoa!!!"

An Unexpected Invitation

I received a nice card in the mail a week or so back from my friends at Bentley! I cannot tell you why they may consider me a good candidate to purchase a $180K motorcar, but let's just say my interest was piqued. Let's face, my only car is a 66 Mustang in driver condition, seems a quite a leap of faith to hop into Continental GT Coupe territory.

Around the Chicago area, it appears that Bentley is raising its head above the typical market segment of private country club members and semi pro polo players.

So, what did I do, I made sure that Iowahawk was available and I called to RSVP. The very polite lady who answered the phone was gracious and said that we were welcome at any time on Friday and that we should come hungry as there would be both breakfast and lunch available. Load up on the canape supplies, dear Bentley dealer, because hungry bloggers are on the way.

Anyhoo, see a pic above of both Iowahawk and me sporting our hotrod costumes. So after getting a new oil pan and a new battery box installed on the 66, I was ready to rumble.

I fired up the Stang, enjoyed the fumes on unspent petrol and headed south the few miles a chez Iowahawk.

We came up with a plan that was predicated on the possibility that the Bentley folks may let us check out a Continental unsupervised, we speculated that this was maybe a 30% chance.
I will say that for $180K, The Continental Coupe GT is quite a looker. And it has the beans to back up the looks. It has 20 inch wheels, a six speed tiptronic style trans and 550 HP v12 and all wheel drive.
Here is a picture of the car that we were allowed to drive. The set up was very nice as they let us drive it for however long we wanted, but alas, there was a Bentley representative riding along. Donuts, neutral drops and attempts at four wheel powerslides were not in the cards for Iowahawk and rb that day.
Scary as this sounds, I think that the Continental GT Coupe may be worth $180K, I came away feeling that this motorcar had an unlimited powerband and that I was driving something in the level of safety of a bank vault.

I won't be able to attend...

Via The Stepfather of Soul blog, I saw this awesome poster for the Soul show this Saturday. $15?!? Get out there Chicago!

Sorry about the post avalanche, just a lot of stuff today.

Funky Shout Outs--Some Mixes to pass the week

Since I have a few minutes this morning, I wanted to give some shouts out to some other blogs that are doing the funky work, to make our weeks roll a bit more smoothly with good tunage:

First up, Vincent at Fufu Stew has a new mix called Fufu Funk Fix #2.

Next, this is tomorrow has a set up called 30 min funk workout mix #2.

Dave at heavy soul brutha has a set called Caplog Meets Soul Brutha Mod Radio UK Show.

All of these sets should put some more glide in your stride, support these blogs!

Two of Ford's Finest

A 66 289 Stang and a 31 Hot Rod Coupe.