Noj

Like RDK, I got the Pharaohs' albums from emusic. The Ubiquity funk compilations on that site are also a lot of fun--Groove Merchant, Soulful, Deja Vu, Bag Of Goodies, Feeling Good, Heading In The Right Direction, Hip City, Evolution, and What It Is! are all loaded with weird funk gems such as Stone Alliance "Sweetie Pie" and Pir Square "Fantasy." There were a few other good funk items on emusic, such as Nino Nardini & The Pop Riviera Group, Black Nasty, Lee Fields, and lots of other stuff on Stax. I may have to re-enlist and see what I missed.

PM sent! Figure I've got to be in for my 30th in a row...

I'm definitely a fan! BTW, iTunes had the track list for Chains & Black Exhaust.

I've got this compilation called "Sophistifunk" on Irma Jazz records. It has a track called "Mr. McFreeze" by George Duke. Might be just the thing you're looking for, if you can find the album. 1976.

I've got both those Larry Young albums on reissued vinyl, and have to agree with Lon that they are my least favorite Young albums I've heard so far. If you dig electric piano and don't mind R&B covers, Ramsey Lewis' "Upendo Ni Pamoja" and "Funky Serenity" are fairly funky.

Another tough week. Here's my picks: Baltimore Tampa Bay Detroit Indianapolis Cincinnati New England Pittsburgh Philadelphia Atlanta St. Louis Green Bay Miami San Diego Kansas City NY Giants Dallas 41 points

Happy Birthday, GHF!

Happy Birthday!

Ray-the scariest insect I've seen around our area is the pepsis wasp, aka tarantula hawk. Yes, they hunt tarantulas.

Do you have a Mac? I've had the same problem with Sony.

We have a $5 sheet that pays close to $1000. It involves multiple businesses and has grown over several years. Usually comes down to the points on Monday night.

Needless to say I didn't win the football pool at work this week.

It looks like all have commented who are going to do so, although a few such as impossible have joined late. I hope those who participated have found something enjoyable on these compilations. It's a far cry from the listening experience of jazz, but I actually got into jazz because years of listening to rap led me there. I found out names of jazz artists who were sampled. I'd always been partial to instrumental music, and discovered that jazz is the most rewarding instrumental music. Rap is the gateway music. I tried to include many different types of rap and a wide variety of subject matter. I tried to include beats which I feel represent the best creativity rap has to offer. My taste in rap is likely more suburban than street, and maybe I like stuff that isn't true to the tastes of hardcore hip-hoppers. I've never been a part of the culture. I grew up a skateboarder, and skateboarders typically have odd tastes. When I was skateboarding, all skateboarders were somewhat outcasts, unaccepted, kicked out of everywhere we went. Therefore, we were never racist and always accepting of anyone else who rode well simply because it is more fun to ride with others who ride. I had skateboard friends of every color and creed, and picked up some of my rap taste from friends who were also DJs. Disc One "The Bright Side" 1. "Nate McCavish Handbills For No Man" - Youngblood Brass Band - Center: Level: Roar Marvelous new rap band with a live brass section and a tuba running the bass lines. Many rap albums have little interludes, and often they are my favorite part of the album. 2. "Joy" - Talib Kweli - Quality Talib Kweli raps about the births of his two children. He comes across as a good man and father with a moral, decent perspective on life. Rap doesn't have to be about being a bad ass or talking shit. Violins and female vocals create an intense atmosphere for Talib's story. A perfect example of a listenable rap song exhibiting strong values. I know how Kweli feels. 3. "? Vs. Rahzel" - The Roots - Do You Want More?!!!??! Funky voices, the sound of a lighter, horns and upright bass, all accomplished with just a microphone. Rahzel can make incredible noises like that dude from Police Academy and Spaceballs. He's even more impressive live. 4. "Passing Me By" - The Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde Multiple layers functioning together seamlessly. This is the creativity which was killed by the sampling laws. Music like this is too damned expensive to make anymore. The Pharcyde's rappers had unique voices and approaches, and they sing their own chorus here. 5. "Ms. Fat Booty" - Mos Def - Black On Both Sides Interesting beat chops up Aretha's voice/band in an unpredictable manner which accentuates Mos' delivery. 6. "A Roller Skating Jam Named ''Saturdays''" - De La Soul - De La Soul Is Dead De La Soul is the greatest rap band of all time, imho. A rare disco song, a Doors cover, and funky scratches are collaged to form this danceable beat. Includes Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest. What other rap band could make a track about roller skating cool? 7. "Strobelite Honey" - Black Sheep - A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing Hilarious rap about meeting women on dark club dance floors. Infectious beat from a source I've never been able to identify. All in good fun, but perhaps a bit chauvinist and insensitive. 8. "B-Boy Bouillabaisse" - The Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique I included this more for the huge variety of beats contained here than the lyrics. This led me to track down recordings by Gene Harris, The Crusaders, and The Isley Brothers, among others. The Beasties are clearly having a good time here, finding flows and trading juvenile, ornery raps. Rap is very often the very antithesis of political correctness. The production on this album would have been astronomically expensive had the sampling laws been in effect when it was made. Legitimately, an album like this will never happen again. 9. "Brown Skin Woman" - KRS-One - Return Of The Boom Bap KRS-One goes to bat against misogyny and the use of the "N" word. Dancehall reggae influence. I think he fumbles some of the concept here, but KRS' heart is in the right place. Kid Capri's beat is a personal favorite. 10. "Everyone Has a Summer" - Lovage - Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By (Instrumental) Dan The Automator and Kid Koala weave together a composition of vocal samples and savvy turntable manipulations. I included this to show the sort of thing DJ's are capable of which isn't found anywhere else in the music world. The range of chosen noises here is far-reaching and unpredictable. 11. "Simple Man" - Grouch - Making Perfect Sense Grouch does a lot of his own production as well as raps. One of the things I love about rap is the odd sounds that get made into beats. When one buys an album of music performed with traditional instruments, the sounds can surprise but often not to the point that one doesn't know which instrument will be heard next. With rap, there's steel drums here, a weird yodel follows, then a sitar...all in various different combinations throughout a well-produced album. It's selectivity and editing. 12. "Master Your High" - Aceyalone - Accepted Eclectic I've been around the person who took too much shrooms, the friend puking out the window of the car, the ecstasy freaks, and the bad drunk who picks fights with his friends. Some learn the hard way. 13. "Corner Story" - Del Tha Funky Homosapien - Future Development Del is a rapper who often records spontaneous raps and releases them warts and all. I dig Del's honesty and even his awkwardness here. Ice Cube's cousin, he was 18 when he released his first album. 14. "Goodmorning Sunshine" - Quasimoto - The Unseen Cryptic, ambiguous lyrics and vocal samples of a funky voice, combined with that sped up rap voice...isn't that weird? Madlib is both the producer and the rapper. 15. "Lesson 6: The Lecture" - Jurassic 5 - Jurassic 5 EP Anyone recognize the sample from Star Wars? Cut Chemist is the DJ here. 16. "I Be Blowin'" - De La Soul - Buhloone Mind State I'd much rather listen to this than the Lou Rawls cover it samples, one of the few times where I feel the sample surpassed the creativity of its source. No guesses on the horn player? Must be too obvious. 17. "Find You Out" - RJD2 - Your Face Or Your Kneecaps RJD2 has taken the concept of sampling and ran with it farther than most. Adios! Disc Two "The Dark Side" 1. "Farmer's Market Of The Beast" - Omid - Beneath The Surface Instrumentals I wanted to establish the dark theme of this comp and felt this beat is about as dark as they come. If anyone can find it (I've only got the instrumentals), listen to this song with the lyrics to hear some of the strangest raps that ever were recorded. Billy Go-o-o-at! 2. "Children's Story" - Slick Rick - The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick Easily one of the greatest rap songs ever, imo. The story doesn't exactly have a happy ending, which is why I considered this a "dark" track. It does have an honorable message, "straight and narrow or your soul gets cast." 3. "Who's The Mack?" - Ice Cube - AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted Some JB's and some Marvin, and a vocal sample from Digital Underground's Humpty Hump. This song had a hilarious video way back when. Cube's lyrics have the charisma that made him huge, and he was more a ghetto commentator than the gangster that he had professed to being on the NWA albums. He has a positive message here, despite the dark subject matter of drug addicted bums, prostitution, and womanizing. 4. "Just To Get A Rep" - Gang Starr - Step In The Arena Sad but true, some people value reputations more than human life. Very simple production, not much more than loop of some moog music and a repeatedly chopped in rap line. DJ Premier's scratches are crisp, and Guru's lyrics are never better than here. 5. "Love's Gonna Getcha (Material Love)" - BDP - Criminal Minded One of the first rap songs I ever liked. 6. "Queens" - Pharoahe Monch - Internal Affairs This song samples Maxwell, who is a current R&B singer. I don't think the Maxwell song was even a year old, which makes this an oddity. Monch is from Organized Konfusion, who had a hit in the early 90s with the song "Fudge Pudge." 7. "Spottieottiedopaliscious" - Outkast - Aquemini Those horns! Andre's rap is detached, impersonal, and remote, as if merely an observer to the violence that erupts at the end of his story. Big Boi's verse is slick and good-hearted, "one moment you frequent the booty clubs and the next four years you and somebody's daughter are raising your own young'un, now that's a beautiful thing." 8. "It Ain't Hard To Tell" - Nas - Illmatic He's got a cool voice and a great flow, though not much is said. Plus one gets to hear a mean loop from a Michael Jackson record and not hear Michael Jackson. A bit of chest-thumping, essentially shit-talk. 9. "Tried By 12" - East Flatbush Projects "I sign my name in the book at your funeral." WTF? Is this guy some cold-blooded killer or what? Disturbing shit to me. Offensive shit. Anyone would rather be "tried by 12 than carried by 6," but if the motivation for the killing is financial rather than defensive there's no honor in it. Is the concept merely one of battling with raps, or is this professing the very motivation for killing that exists in gang warfare? There's a fine line between the shit talked by Nas in the previous song and something like this. I can see this guy being the murderer who killed "Donovan" in Pharoahe Monch's song. I can't play this, even though that's a heck of a loop. It might make an appropriate song for a violent movie. 10. "Strange Ways" - Madvillain - Madvillainy More from Madlib, this time with rapper MF Doom. Interesting take on different scenarios of violence in our world. I disagree with his politics, but it is notable that there would actually be some relevant political content and points worthy of discussion. 11. "Falling" - Dudley Perkins - A Lil' Light Another Madlib-produced project, Dudley is one abnormal cat. I thought the lyrics were very appropriate considering the last few tracks. "I see unnecessary death. I see lives just thrown away." 12. "Sum Shit I Wrote" - Common Sense - Resurrection Common just sort of free-associates and clowns around. More fun to me than the Nas track, however similar. 13. "Ya'll Niggas Ain't Ready" - Def Squad - El Niño Erick Sermon of EPMD fame, the first rapper here, has one of the most recognizable rap voices. 14. "Coma" - Aesop Rock - Labor Days Aesop's lyrics are so complicated they're tough to decipher, which makes them somewhat entertaining. Atypical percussion for a rap song and creepy samples. 15. "The Manhatten Project" - Typical Cats - Typical Cats Fascinating rap about graffiti, includes some of the rules and coded speak of graffiti artists. I'm a fan of graffiti artists who have become fine artists and create installations in galleries, such as Barry McGhee and Jeff Soto. A good friend of mine when I was growing up had several photo books of New York graffiti artists from various years, with hundreds of images of intricate, colorful pieces on walls and train cars. I used to mimic the styles all the time (on paper) when I was in junior high and high school. I included this one because the subject matter is more interesting than many rap songs. 16. "Mr. Nigga" - Mos Def - Black On Both Sides Back to something more melodic. Mos Def lays down a bunch of frustration over dealing with racism. I can appreciate most of what he says and empathize with his anger, but I disagree with some of the things he says. IMHO, Mos Def actually comes off a bit racist himself in this song. Lots of "they's" in there. It bothers me that Mos would group his own white fans in with the racists, saying they are still racist "while this song is in their car." I suppose it is merely the justified reaction of someone subjected to racial indignity after racial indignity at the hands of white people. It is sad to think that someone as level-headed and intelligent as Mos Def has never encountered a white person who he trusts won't call him the "N" word behind his back, or despite being outwardly kind behave toward him with "actions (which) reveal how their hearts really feel." 17. "Green Power" - Quasimoto - The Unseen "It all starts and finishes with green." 18. "Marvel" - Ghostface Killah - Ironman I had to include something from RZA, this is my edit from a Ghostface song with some particularly forgettable lyrics. Complex layers. No sound you're likely to hear anywhere else. Note the similarities between the female voice and the flute, and how the flute also sounds somewhat digital like some of the other sounds. RZA's beats have been consistently this unique throughout many Wu albums. 19. "Murder of Soul" - DJ Krush - Krush Krush is Japanese. I thought the chorus and the gloomy mood to be especially relevant for "The Dark Side." 20. "Alphabet Aerobics (The Cut Chemist A-Z Remix) - Blackalicious - A2G EP Wrapping things up...I had a couple minutes left. No guesses for the bonus disc?

Wasn't she a Noxema girl? I think the University Of Phoenix is in California.

Besides having the ball hit the turf, they also would have had to switch Collins' jersey to Patriots red, white, and blue to get that call. Cheaters.

I dig that Fritz The Cat soundtrack, I downloaded it from emusic though so I don't have any liners. My favorite track is "Bertha's Theme."

After last night, it appears the Raiders' biggest needs for improvement are pass defense and providing better pass protection for Kerry Collins. Randy Moss was largely responsible for making last night's game competitive. Collins needs to find a balance between getting the ball to Moss and using him as a decoy to find Porter, Curry, Whitted, etc. LaMont Jordan also looked very good for Oakland. I was very impressed by the Raiders' improvement in rushing defense, limiting Corey Dillon to far fewer yards than I thought they would. Overall, despite the loss and a few glaring errors, I'd say this was a good game for the Raiders. That was the defending Superbowl champs they made look very beatable.

My picks: New England Washington Cincinnati Denver Houston Carolina NY Jets Jacksonville Minnesota Tennessee NY Giants San Diego Detroit St. Louis Indianapolis Philadelphia - 42 points

Cool drawings and paintings, everyone! Consistent, individual styles. It's nearly inevitable to develop a signature look, it just happens. I love that.

I'll have my picks in by tomorrow morning.

Happy Birthday!

Discs received, listening now! Thanks Upright Bill!

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Damn, I guess there's no salvaging this thread.

Barry McGee