Bootsy Collins has rightfully received accolades as funk's second officer (after George Clinton – and it should be third after James Brown and Clinton). For decades he has been sampled by every rapper from Snoop Dogg to OutKast, and virtually created the bass sound that made the Red Hot Chili Peppers a household name and that created a career for Les Claypool. Yet, his most influential sound emanated not from his tenure with James Brown or P-Funk, but his own Rubber Band, and until now that wooly, wild, and surreal unit has never been properly anthologized. Rhino, in their usual thorough, crazy fashion, have directed the folks at the Warner archives and have created a massive, drop-the-bomb two-disc set that sets the record straight.
Jimmy McGriff's B-3 sound was always rooted in blues and gospel, and his soloing could be very smooth and polished. But every once in a while, he had to break out of his own soul box and tear it up on a session. The Worm, issued on Solid State Records in 1968, is the very first place he did. This is the first true, all-out funky burner from McGriff, and it sounds very different from most of the other titles on his shelf. Having a band like this helps: trumpeter Blue Mitchell, tenor saxophonist Fats Theus (with Bob Ashton on baritone and Danny Turner on alto), alternating drummers Mel Lewis and Grady Tate, bassist Bob Bushnell, and guitarist Thornel Schwartz were all in their prime in 1968. The title track, written by McGriff, Theus, and producer Sonny Lester, sets the tone for the whole platter.
Collection of 30 CDs on various styles (Love, Movies, R&B, Country, World and Rock). Although you may find the collection a bit outdated since the release is from 2001, it contains some great songs… so enjoy.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion were one of the most viscerally exciting indie rock acts of the 1990s, but making their blast of frantic energy work in the studio was sometimes a challenge if you were going for anything more than sheer gutbucket stomp. On Orange and Acme, JSBX used strings, hip-hop beats, and various production niceties to add texture to the two-guitar-and-drums onslaught, but with Now I Got Worry, they moved forward into the past with the fiercest and most elemental set they'd released since Crypt Style. Now I Got Worry kicks off with Spencer screaming his head off while Russell Simins lays down a funky, muscular backbeat, and that sets the tone for what follows; the album plays at full-blast from beginning to end, even when the tempo shifts and the band eases back a bit in the name of dynamics.
Without any obvious keystone event, Biota – who started recording in the late 1970’s as the Mnemonist Orchestra – have quietly become a musical fixture, honoured for their uniquely, abstract, layered, polystylistic approach to musical construction - deaf to fashion or possible sales. And it seems, paradoxically, to have been just this art-orientated commercial indifference that has slowly won them loyal followers and surprisingly respectable sales. Now, for a wider audience - and at a congenial price - this box collects five representative releases that span their discography and track the radical evolution of their crystalline aesthetic – with added documentation, a band history, insights into their work process, and a full-length bonus CD embroidered from their archive of rare and unreleased material. Contents: Funnel to a Thread, Half a True Day, Invisible Map, Object Holder and Gyromancy (recorded as the Mnemonist Orchestra), and the box-only bonus Counterbalance.