Midweek Boogaloo - Amos Milburn

The first in an occasional series documenting tunes, tracks and clips that swish, swing and have a rythm section that thumps, bumps and bounces like those pesky picnic grabbing ants from Tom and Jerry.

How snappy would it be to walk up to some dusty ol' pub piano, crack your knuckles and hammer out the honky tonk like this....

Amos Milburn - Down The Road Apiece

'Down The Road Apiece' was reworked some years later by the Stones, who really don't make a bad shout of it - hear here.

And for all out rockingness....

Amos Milburn - Chicken Shack Boogie

Purple Nasties

When I first started shaking a leg (or 'flapping' if it was The Cramps) at clubs back in the early eighties, Crocs in Rayleigh was the place to go if you were in the sunny Southend area. Marmite, Piley and I were regulars at Crocs alongside Depeche Mode (who played their debut show there), Boy George, Steve Strange and various other celebrity Blitz Kids, Punks and Pysco Billies that hoofed it down from London for the cheap drink (50p a pint before 10) and top tunes spun by resident DJ 'Fatman'.

This Mixwit comp is a rough sampler of the sound of the crowd from Crocs around the 1982/84 period until it eventually became refitted in chrome, mirrors and plastic palm trees and rebranded as the 'Pink Toothbrush'. One tune that was a guaranteed banker and fitted formats of all local clubs at the time...

The Monkey House - sounds for alt.student crowd
Chesters - Electro night on Wednesdays
Zero Six - Jazz Funk for Casuals and Soul Boys
T.O.T.S - Eighties Disco

was the Bobby O produced Ronni Griffith track 'The Best Part Of Breaking Up'. Unfortunatley but understandably Mixwit's database didn't stretch to this eighties obscurity, so I've loaded it up below...

Ronni Griffith - The Best Part Of Breaking Up



I will be loading up a hard copy of this mix at some point - but on a similar theme the good people at Punk Globe magazine invited me to submit a 'Top Ten' of anything for the April issue - which is now on their website and includes my top tunes and random items that I've been buzzing on recently - s'here if you fancy a peep Punk Globe Top Tens. (They've also loaded up my Brian James interview too - in case you missed it first time round)

Funky Friday - It's A Blog Swap!

Yes a blog swap! I'm over at Mr Double Down's thumpingly funky Hook And Sling site with a brand new bespoke mix 'Dial M For Mondo'
(Which you can taste test below with this two minute teaser trailer...)

While MR DD pushes the buttons and plays a royal flush of funky aces right here ...

Mr Double Down Presents Funky Friday (The Hook And Sling Meets Planet Mondo)

Hello, my name is Mr Double Down and I am one part of The Hook And Sling, a monthly 100% funk and soul night in London’s West End with The Popcorn King and Hoppin’ John . We also run the same titled Podcast / Blog over on Podbean.com. I’m really honoured to be invited over here by Dave to contribute to the ongoing ‘Funky Friday’ section of his fantastic Blog..

The old saying “All good things come in threes” couldn’t ring truer here today as I have the pleasure of sharing three of my favourite 45’s with you, they have all really been doing the business at our night lately! Its ’Funky Friday’!, so loosen that collar because the week-end’s just beginning!

Curtis Mayfield – Mother’s Son (Curtom)

Download Curtis Mayfield – 'Mother’s Son' here

First up is an artist most of you will (should!!) be familiar with. Curtis Mayfield, legendary singer, writer and producer from the 70’s. This cut, ‘Mother’s Son’ is perhaps a little less well known, but popularity should never affect quality, and it certainly doesn’t here! Taken from his own Curtom label, this is a 45 that Hoppin’ John has been hammering since our nights humble beginnings on the south coast of England – and justifiably so. What a record!! Definitely one for the bass heads out there!

The B.B.K. Expedition – For The Love Of Money (Dynamite Soul)

Download The B.B.K. Expedition – For The Love Of Money here

Dynamite Soul is a relatively new record label in the grand scheme of things. Lately they’ve been resurrecting all sorts of forgotten funk, soul and reggae gems from the 60’s and 70’s and issuing them on 45 again.
The B.B.K. Expedition’s cover of ‘For The Love Of Money’, a track originally by The O’Jays, was taken from an unreleased album called ‘Upships Creek’. The B.B.K’s version here is certainly the rougher and rawer of the two, and if the horn break at the end of the cut doesn’t do it for you , then give up now! This version also always manages to turn heads at our night! As a small Brucie bonus, here’s a great live version of the original by the O’Jays from 1974!

Tony Bowens And The Soul Choppers – Boilin’ Water (Tony Bowens)


Download Tony Bowens And The Soul Choppers – 'Boilin’ Water' here

I first heard this several years ago at Keb Darge’s ‘Legendary Deep Funk’ night in Soho. It’s an absolute funk monster and on the account that its as rare as hens teeth, it doesn’t come up for sale too often for anything less than 3 figures (I told you all good things came in 3’s). I caught my copy a few years back after a manic bidding frenzy on the Bay, and it was worth every single penny! For those that don’t dabble in the practise of shelling out ‘silly money’ on vinyl, it was recently comped by Will Quantic for Jazzman Records and was also put out on a French re-issue 45 under the name of The Soul Choppers. I don’t know all that much about the 45, other than that Tony Bowen’s hailed from New York and put the record out independently, probably due to monetary constraints. I think in this case the music says all that needs to be said!

I’d like to thank Dave once more for allowing me to contribute over here. You can find him holding the reigns over at The Hook And Sling where he is currently dropping his ‘Dial M for Mondo’ Mix as part of our continuing Guest Mix Series. I hope you enjoyed my selections today and for those of you who are in the London area, you can catch us at The Hook And Sling every second Saturday of the month at The Brown Sugar Bar in High Holborn. All the dates and details can be found HERE

Mr Double Down
http://thehookandsling.podbean.com

Re-make/Re-model Pt. 3 Real Deal Divas

Forget low calorie, size zero personality, wibbly wobbly warblers, shreaking squealers and puffed up preeners who put all the goods on the barrow with nothing left in the loft. Cold hearted Harpies, hard faced halfwits and know-nothings exploding in giddy ninny tizzes over some silly business.

No. No. No. Peggy Lee and Mae West are where its at dad, those slinky superstar supervixens as full, fruity and saucy as knickerbocker glories and peach melbas. Swishing from the hip, shooting for the heart and getting pulses pumping like Thumper with the raise of an eyebrow, the flick of a fringe or the drop of hankie, who have giants and gentlemen reaching for their lighters while blowing smoke rings round all wannabe waifs and WAGS.

Peggy Lee - Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay




Mae West - Great Balls Of Fire


Some hi tech clever clogs has made a vid' for the Mae West track - well worth a peep

And, speaking of wonder women have you checked out the mighty Rock Mothers podcasts 'Romo For Real'? Armed with a box of tunes and a bottle plonk, it's fourty minutes of wall to wall wonder tunes and chirpy chat - get on over and fill your Biba boots here.

PS - One track from this posting will be appearing in a new mix going live this Friday

"will you woo this wildcat?” - Taming Of The Shrew

Outdoor Miner

what a huff and puff! Trying to shift back into gear, after a week of stretching out and strolling through miles of spacey acres.

I fancy becoming an 'Outdoor Miner'- whatever it is.

Wire - 'Outdoor Miner'


Wire - 'Outdoor Miner'

You can read about the making of this tune here, and have a peep at an actual factual 'Outdoor Miner' right here.

Another Green World

I'm off to the country for a week - just round the corner from this place. But while I'm away...

If you fancy a read...
Blogging really doesn't get much better than this

If you fancy listen...
Why not pick and mix from these rocking
pop nuggets and rare soul sweeties

If you fancy a watch...
The internet was invented for scraps like this

PS - suggested soundtracks for my trip are here if you fancy a nosey.

Funky Friday - Aciiiiiiiiid Jazz

Can you believe it's over 20 years since Acid Jazz first dropped into circulation with its juicy loose grooves and scrapbook look of Carnaby Street chic, Caine flick cool and bohemian beards? Aside from AJ's Anglomania retro referencing (beating Britpop to similar source material by several years) musically Acid Jazz seems to be a composite of these three elements ..

Early Santana - Latin shuffles with squealy and/or wah guitar

Jaco Pastorious - all Acid Jazz bass cadets had red hot handskills.

Robin's Nest theme tune - a riff that Jamiroquai's been riding and rewriting for his entire career.(Out of all the Acid Jazzers - why is HE the only one that's endured? )

So what acid drops are we taste testing today?

Corduroy - (formerly known as those moonage mods - Boys Wonder more on that here) laying down some skinny trousered split screen funk - there really is some great editing on the 'E Type' vid. I've spotted 'Blow Up' and 'Hawaii Five O' - but I'm sure there's more

Corduroy - E Type




Mother Earth - headed up by Matt Deighton (Santana influence) and their 'can't believe it wasn't a monster hit' piece of perfect pop- 'Jesse'. Mother Earth's album 'People Tree' features Weller as a backing vocalist on 'Mr Freedom' which acted as the perfect framing device for Weller's first (acid style) solo album and Modfather revival. Deigton later stood in for Noel Gallagher at the occasional Oasis gig.

Mother Earth - Jesse




The New Jersy Kings - (Robin's Nest and Jaco influence) The James Taylor Quartet had been riffing on spy high soul for sometime, before bizarrely going into hiding as space age funkateers The New Jersey Kings when Acid Jazz kicked in.
New Jersy Kings - Dreamwaves



If you're in the mood for more contempory Acid Jazz style sounds check out The Bongolian , who keeps his synthy sizzlers spiked with an acid flavouring..

Re-make/Re-model Pt. 3 Corduroy - Motorhead

Corduroy should've been huge. Their Acid Jazz jamboree bag of athletic jams and frug outs , easy breezy free flowing instrumentals set dressed in sixties cinematics and Cool Britannia cultural references ('How To Steal The World', 'Harry Palmer', 'Mini' ) and confident otherworldy trendiness of retro style, French Crops and neat, nifty trousers pre empted the mid nineties Brit Pop/Easy Listening revival by at least five years in one funky bundle.

Corduroy - 'Motorhead'

In a previous life as Boys Wonder they'd been pedalling pop art cartoon tunes two years ahead of Carter USM, The Wonder Stuff, Betty Boo and Deee-lite with mighty titles like 'Take Me To Your Leader', 'All Because The Lady Loves' and must have T shirts like these...



Ian TB has an 'all you need to know' feature on Boys Wonder and their single 'Now What Earthman' here.

To see Boys Wonder in action vamping their anthem ' Shine On Me' on Saturday Night Live click here..

But, getting back to Corduroy - think of it as a warm up for this weeks Funky Friday

Fufu Stew Goes Mondo

There's no Funky Friday this week, it being Easter weekend - but instead there's a bumper Bank Holiday special.

Vince the Soul Chef who dishes up those sizzling mixes and spectacular singles on Fufu Stew, has beamed across the Atlantic to cook up a mix of punk, electro and new wave nuggets that is the soundtrack to scouring Smash Hits and NME for new releases, home made tapes (on 'compact cassettes'), late night listens to Radio Luxembourg and John Peel, picture sleeves, 12 inch singles, button badges and trips to the Great Gear Market (or similar) for togs like these. So over to Vince......




Hello, kiddies.

It is my pleasure to be here on Planet Mondo for this special post. Most of you may know me for my many and varied mixes of Funk and Soul music, but let me assure you that that is only the half of it. When I was a teenager, I was one of the millions who saw the birth of MTV. Back then it was inconceivable to think that the music video would influence me, much less having a lasting effect on my musical education. Some twenty five years later I look at my closet full of LPs and I am reminded of just how much influence it truly had...

I can vividly recall that fateful day in August of 1981 when the infamous rocket first took off. It couldn't have happened at a better time too because I was serving a very severe punishment for getting caught doing something quite stupid. Imagine having all of your records and tapes taken away for eight months! Well, it happened to me. Luckily I was still able to watch television so I made sure to keep my eyes glued to the set waiting for my favourite videos to come on. While I waited, I discovered a totally new genre of music that would find its way into my heart and most important, into my record collection subsequently replacing the R&B of the day that I normally played. It also helped that I could go to my local public library and dig even deeper into this new sound. From Glam to New Wave and New Romantic all the way to full blown Goth, here is just a small sample of some of that music and what it means to me personally.

01 Capitol Radio-The Clash (NU-Disk).
Taken from the original 10" LP "Black Market Clash", and lyrically a very important statement that should be adopted by practically every blogger.
02 Friends-TheTubeway Army (Beggars Banquet).
My first introduction to the minimalist vision of Gary Numan was obviously enough the hit single "Cars" until I heard the debut recording from 1978... WOW!
03 Judas Sheep-Hunters And Collectors (Virgin). I found this one digging through dollar bins one day. Being from the US, it was a novelty to have British imports in my collection so I gave it a try. What a brutal assault on my brain, complete with the funky wah wah pedal. More of that to come...
04 Metal-Gary Numan (Beggars Banquet).
Here is the flip side of the US pressing of the "Cars" 45, which I tend to dig a lot more than the A side.
05 Saturday Week-Katrina And The Waves (Aftermath).
Here's another dollar bin find that pretty much sat dormant in my crates until now. Of course I know their signature hit "Walking On Sunshine", but curiosity got the better of me. I had to pick a cut from this 1982 release just to see if it worked.
06 Big Shot-The Beat (Fame).
I don't mind a good dose of British Ska once in a while, and this tune certainly fed the need along with the next tune...
07 Nightboat To Cairo-Madness (Stiff).
MTV played lots (and LOTS) of Madness back in the day.
08 Belief-The Danse Society (Society).
Here's one that I didn't discover until years later when I was babysitting records for a friend during my heavy Gothic period. Another tune that made me go WOW!
09 Malpaso Man-Visage (Polydor).
And another classic MTV moment featuring the talents of John McGeoch, who in my opinion was the best of the many guitarists to play for Siouxsie & the Banshees.
10 Press Darlings-Adam And The Ants (CBS).
Mr. Mondo was pleased that I chose this tune to play. Kings of the Wild Frontier in my opinion is THE quintessential New Wave album.
11 Baby Oh No-Bow Wow Wow (RCA).
Yet another classic MTV moment. Being 14 at the time made it easy to have it bad for the very provocative Anabelle. Those of you who are around my age would certainly have to agree.
12 Armalite Rifle-Gang Of Four (Warner).
From the infamous Yellow EP, enough said.
13 Anti Pope-The Damned (Chiswick).
No need to say anything here...
14 Assassination K - Kanserous-The Wolfgang Press (4AD).
There was a time when 4AD could do no wrong. Even if the music was terrible, I still put my hard earned money on the counter, sometimes paying up to 30 bucks for a CD. This one is the remix from the "Bird Wood Cage" LP. Dig that funky wah wah once again!
15 Supernatural Thing-Siouxsie & The Banshees (Polydor).
Here's another one from that huge pile of records I got to babysit. Of all the tunes that Siouxsie covered over her illustrious career, this one was the most unlikely along with being the funkiest.
16 Telegram Sam-T. Rex (EMI) .
It's a known fact that Glam heavily influenced Goth. Being a huge Bauhaus fan, I loved the way they treated this one. When I found the original at long last, I was quite happy with myself.
17 It's Going To Happen-The Undertones (EMI).
MTV even had the video for this tune...
18 Madness-The Belle Stars (Stiff).
I discovered this band during a bout of insomnia one night. Suffice it to say when I saw all those hot women freaking that New Wave funk, I had to rush right out and find a record. This is the B side of the US 12" for "Sign Of The Times". I wonder whatever happened to them.
19 Chicken Outlaw-Wide Boy Awake (RCA).
Does anyone know anything about this band? All I can tell you is that I picked up the record in a dollar bin over 25 years ago because it looked New Wave...
20 Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)-Spandau Ballet (Chrysalis).
Another classic MTV moment, and quite frankly the first song of its kind that led me to realise that Funk can be found in the most unlikely of places.
21 Resurrection Joe-The Cult (Beggars Banquet).
I close with this tune from the proverbial turning point of this band's career, between the brilliant yet sadly out of print debut and their slow descent into crossover oblivion.

Please download and enjoy Fufu Stew Goes MONDO!

Fufu Stew Goes Mondo - 71 MB mp3 file
Fufu Stew Goes Mondo - 70 MB zip file

Thank you Mr. Mondo for giving me an outlet to share some of these treasures that I was afraid to share on my own blog. Not that I dig the tunes any less than my funk and soul 45s, but there's a time and place for everything. I would love to come back soon and do it again because I have many more tunes just waiting to get the patented Fufu Stew treatment. Here's hoping that you all enjoyed this little stroll down memory lane with me. As my British blogging colleagues would say, all the best!

Peace and blessings.

Baltic Fleet - Clout Rock

My actual copy of Baltic Fleet's album 'Baltic Fleet'

I went to see The Bongolian at Blow Up Metro a few weeks back, first on the bill were Baltic Fleet whose set was as explosive as bare knuckle battling robots - since then I've heard them on Steve Lamaq, been checking out their (Myspace site ) and ....have even gone and got a copy of the album.

Imagine the demolition duo of Peter Hook on bass and John Bonham on drums dropping in occasionally to add their robust rhythms to the crystal synthscapes and fat anaglogue wallop of Boards of Canada. Almost impossible to pin down, but where 'Christiane F' imagery, Eno's 'Begegnungen' period,the sound of collapsing icebergs and the words Saw-tooth, ringmodulatorand oscillation all overlap on a Venn diagram is the place that Baltic Fleet inhabit with their nu wave for the space age...

Baltic Fleet - 3 Dollar Dress



Baltic Fleet - Castellon Theme



Silvery were second on the bill that night, whose higgldy piggldy Victorania arcade anthems and 'I was Lord Kitchener's Valet' outfits you can see here - the single 'Horrors' is out now. It looks like this .

My actual copy of the Silvery single 'Horrors'

Be sure to check back on Thursday for a ' Fu Fu Stew goes Mondo' mix - Where Vince the Soul Chef from Fu Fu Stew has prepared a 70 minute mix of New Wave nuggets, Electro anthems and early eighties treats. It really is something quite special...