Red Astaire: Nuggets For The Needy

One odd thing about living way down here under the equator is that we get ‘summer’ albums just as our summer is dying down. Sure, it makes sense to release this album when the majority of the world’s music buying population is checking the gas in their BBQs – damn Europeans and Yanks – but there’s a certain cruelty for us southerners.

The new mix album from Red Astaire is most definitely a summer record. The cover copies the Red Stripe logo – a fine beer for summer lounging and, unsurprisingly, the music follows the lounging summer theme. It’s a ‘sand between toes, rocking in a hammock with a battered straw hat on sipping on beers’ type of sound. Red Astaire may be Swedish, but he’s drawing on Latin, reggae and soul sounds; rather than those staples of the Swedish Eurovision entry – pop, metal and pop metal.

Astaire is probably better known by the similarly altered nom de plume – Freddy Cruger – though there is little that separates the sound produced under each name. If you were seduced by last years excellent Freddy Cruger record, Soul Search, you’ll definitely need to get your hands on this set of mixes.

Read the full review here

The Presenters Presenters

With Tom and I being off air for a few weeks I thought I’d take the time to present our readers with some of the radio shows I enjoy on a weekly basis.

Rhythm Incursions deliver one of the finer radio shows this world’s radio waves have to offer. Often, each week, Rhythm Incursions will invite a guest to co-ho a show with them. Two of Rhythm Incursions more brilliant shows are still available for download.

The first is hosted by a DJ named Buddy Peace. Although most Rhythm Incursions shows focus on more beat driven and hip hop genres. Buddy Peace decided to present a show focused on some of his favourite indie rock jems.

Buddy Peace and the Rhythm Incursions crew pre-recorded the show and then Buddy mashed it up with spoken word samples and extra beats to present something that resembles a dj mix. However it isn’t really a mix, its something different, a collage, maybe just a radio show, whatever it is, its pure fucking genius.
Its not often that radio show podcasts get continual rotation on my mp3 player; this one has and will continue to for a while yet. Grab it now here.

Wrongtom, another DJ who’s just released his mix ‘Cassetiquette’ co-hosted another show for Rhythm Incursions. Wrongtom brought in various rare jems he’d picked up over the years and offered some great insights about music and the records he’d chosen to play. A very enjoyable show, grab it here.

Hey Hey My My Yo Yo It's Luscious Jackson

Luscious Jackson - Greatest Hits
Ah, the ‘best of’ or ‘greatest hits’ album – fleecing fans with a few remixes and rarities, or offering an introduction to that band you always liked but not enough to buy the album? This example of the genre will hopefully bring more listeners to the group that inspired the Beastie Boys to found the Grand Royal record label. Yes that’s right, Luscious Jackson’s In Search of Manny EP was Grand Royal #1 back in 1992.

According to Beastie Boy Mike D’s liner notes, the Luscious Jackson girls – Jill, Gabby and Kate – were one step up the ‘smarter-than-thou, young NYC teenage punk know-it-all’ food chain from the boys who became beastly. The girls had a fanzine that served as a entry into gigs and interviews with the bands, and were always able to fake the night’s entry stamp or rush a back stage entrance when that failed. As musicians they had friends in high places and when a demo tape made by Jill Cunniff and Gabby Glaser became a tour-bus staple on the Beasties Check Your Head tour they soon found themselves with a record deal. They soon added former Beasties drummer Kate Schellenbach, and shortly after the release of their debut EP filled out their sound with the addition of Vivian Trimble on keys.

Click here to read the full review

Junior Senior - Hey Hey My My Yo Yo
Half Junior/half Senior, half gay/half straight, half shaven/half mustachioed, all Danish popsters who demanded that you ‘Move Your Feet’ return with the stutteringly titled Hey Hey My My Yo Yo. A title that serves as an excellent litmus test of your appreciation of the record. If it sounds childish, simple and a little too much fun for your days of po-faced seriousness, then Junior Senior ain’t for you. However, if you’ve ever slid across the floor boards in imitation of Tom Cruise’s glory days, then this album will induce inane grinning and quickly become your new guilty pleasure.

Like the Go!Team, Junior Senior realise that the one of the most important element of popular dance music – be it 60s Motown, 80s new-wave, early hip-hop or even cheerleading – is the handclap. And the three minute running time. Perhaps one reason for the short songs is to give their hands time to recover – a full live Junior Senior show must result in hands swollenly clapped to novelty sizes. There’s a definite novelty streak to this album, with the lyrics tending to the most ludicrous of catchy rhymes and giddy, cheeky vocals.

Click here to read the full review

Frazzle Snazzle is the square root of Firsnazzle Difornazzle

Bill Cosby’s terrier recently won America's top dog show, which is a relif because if the pooch had lost he was facing the possibility of been dyed 47 differet colours and worn as a sweater. Well not really, but it does provide a pathetic excuse to link you to this disturbing discovery – Urban Dictionary's definition of Cosby Sweater.

Cosby Sweater

The sexual act of eating Fruit Loops, Fruity Pebbles, Trix, and Boo Berry- or any other 'bright, colorful' breakfast cereals- and then vomitting the tacky, dazzling mixture onto your partners chest. The result should look similar to the incredible sweaters that Bill Cosby wore during his highly successful 1980's sitcom "The Cosby Show".

Example: Nicole was overjoyed to receive "a Cosby Sweater" for her birthday.

You learn someething new and perverted everyday - if you know where to look.

The award winning dog, Hobergays Fineus Fogg (i kid you not), was bred in New Zealand and won 30 best in show titles in Australia before coming to live in Pleasanton, California. Bill missed the victory but according to his daughter was very excited by the win. And as his 40-year-old daughter said ‘Can you imagine anyone being more excited than him?''.

Something Cosby related that I’ve been recently excited by is hearing the great man rattle through the funk of Funky North Philadelphia – a track from his album Bill Cosby Sings Hooray for the Salvation Army Band! backed by the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band – of Express Yourself fame. I first read of this gem a few years back when it was mentioned as a neglected treasure in the pages of MOJO and acts like Cypress Hill and the Ultramagnetic MC's have also treasured and sampled its grooves. Anyway here’s taster from that record the very fine, slightly childish Funky North Philadelphia.



It was on Funky 16 Corners a while back, but we've put it back up for ya'll.

Funky North Philadelphia - Bill Cosby

It's been a long time - we shouldn't have left you

Things here at 'the living is easy' may seem to have been a little too laid back in the past few weeks with a distinct lack of blogging. But that's what happens when your computer dies and coughs up its C drive like some thoroughly corrupt smokers lung. Anyway, the computer's back and so is posting. Although the radio show is on hiatus for a while, the blog will continue. We resume standard blogcast with a review of a new compilation of soulful hip-hop from San Francisco based label Om Hip-Hop.

Om Hip-Hop Volume One
A decade ago the first release on the San Francisco based Om Records featured music from the likes of DJ Shadow, The Roots, A Tribe Called Quest and Blackalicious. Now Om has launched a hip-hop devoted offshoot label, called err… Om Hip-Hop. But what the label lacks in name creativity they more than make up in musical quality – and that’s where it counts. This compilation shows off the names that could be the next Roots, Tribes, or Shadows to hit the hip-hop scene.

Many of the names here will be new to most listeners, though there are some bigger names to lure in the curious hip-hop fan with cameo contributions from Erykah Badu, Gift of Gag, Lateef, Mistah FAB, Esthero and Rashan Ahmad of the Crown City Rockers. Two of the groups signed to Om Hip-Hop, Strange Fruit Project and the duo Zion I & The Grouch, have also started to make a name for themselves – and they each make two contributions to this release. However the highlights come from artists that are, for now at least, lesser names.

One of those lesser names is J-Boogie, who teams up with Deuce Eclipse to deliver the flute driven 'Que Pasa' - Check out the clip.


To read the full review of Om Hip Hop Vol. 1 click here