Dyke & the Blazers (1964–1971) were one of the first acts — possibly the first notable act — to play funk other than James Brown. Indeed, they often sounded like a sort of junior version of Brown and the JB’s, playing songs in which the rhythms and riffs mattered more than the tune. Similarly, vocalist Dyke Christian sang/grunted words that mattered more for the feeling and rhythm than the content. (copy/paste)

Arlester “Dyke” Christian is also notably a member of the 27 Club

Throwback: Dyke & The Blazers – UHH Pt. 1 (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Throwback: Dyke & The Blazers – UHH Pt. 2 (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Sampled by (among others):
Public Enemy – Welcome to the Terrordome
Leaders of the New School – Case of the P.T.A.
2Pac – If My Homie Calls
DJ Shadow – Lesson 4
( and obviously) Stetsasonic – Sally

Throwback: Dyke & The Blazers – Let A Woman Be A Woman, Let A Man Be A Man (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

We’ve done it again! Tunawax is the 2011 Intercontinental Dryhump Champions. But rather than hold it over your heads, we’re giving back…Finely picked dance tracks to go cotton to cotton with.

Write me back tomorrow and let me know how you’re doing.

Dryhump Champion: Zoo Brazil – Black Tea (Original Mix) (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This week I noticed that things in the basement had gone unusually quiet, and a silent Fuzzy is a bad sign. So with trepidation I descended deep into the vaults only to find that it was cleaner than usual, though smelled of something metallic burning. So I began to dig a bit out of curiosity and found some of my old crates on the dark end of the Codigator tunnel…

I know I got this from the best unknown producer AckiPablo so long ago that I don’t remember anything about it except that before it I was deaf, and after it I had seen the light… I don’t even know what that means, but something makes me think its an oil covered 7″. Ack – whats the deal here? Update: Lefties Soul Connection.

Fingerbanger 1: Lefties Soul Connection – Organ Donor (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

“Sex is bad! Sex is Wrong!” – Your Mom

Fingerbanger 2: Coldcut – I’m Wild About That Thing (The Lost Sex Tapes – Position 1) (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Something something something classic.

Fingerbanger 3: Rubbabandz – Purple Rain (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Dear Luke Sick and Vrse Murphy,

Marry me.

Love, p.tone

Fingerbanger 4: Sacred Hoop – Hip Hop Dunkies (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

While I was down in the vaults I somehow ended up tipping over a stack of crates, and behind the crates I found a small dark hole just about the size of Fuzzy’s dirt like face. I knew something was up, so I reached down into it and was soon buried deep up to my shoulder only to find my hand in some mucky goop that I’m sure was his attempt at disposing his radioactive waste. while quickly pulling my hand out something caught me and started pulling me back in. I won’t go into details of this horrible ordeal, but hours later after wrapping my hand in gauze, I had finally uncovered what Fuzzy had been hiding from me…

Fingerbanger 5: DJ Shadow – Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt (Wesley Willis Mix) (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

I’m toying with the idea of dedicating a whole day/category to the Amen break and calling it Sunday Service. It would probably take several decades to run out of songs that have used and abused The Winstons “Amen Brother” sample. But regardless of that, this song is notable for an entirely different reason. It is one of the very first (if not often called the first) “Ragga Jungle” tracks ever (1991).

Throwback: Lennie De Ice – We Are ie (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Been getting the remix treatment for 20 years.

Throwback: Lennie De Ice – We Are ie (Caspa & Rusko Remix) (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Of course I’ve posted this before, but it really should be watched by everyone at least once.

Dryhump Champion: J Vandal – Green Smoke (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’ve come into contact with a lot more villains since I moved from vandalism into selling paintings. – Banksy

Fingerbanger 1: Diamond Messages – Boys In Grey Shirts (Rich & Pennyless Remix) (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Fingerbanger 2: Diamond Messages – Liquid Summer (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-
Nothing new here, but a chill song that fits today.

Fingerbanger 3: The XX – VCR (Four Tet Remix) (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Before Rioux sets his sails for the Europe tour, be sure to check out his album release party tomorrow. Saturday Jan 29th with a dual-release show with Beast Make Bomb at the Studio @ Webster Hall in NYC. Sunday in Brooklyn. More info here.

Fingerbanger 4: Rioux – Break Through (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Of course Not all songs are created equal. It happens that some are more equal than others, and some more brilliant than others, and then some are awkwardly standing off to the left wondering when the Wonder Years reruns are on.

Fingerbanger 5: Proseed – The Right Track (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

This is pretty rad, so… only watch it if you like rad shit.

Even though most people don’t listen to it; Jazz is cool. At least that’s how its been played back to us. Even those of us that weren’t there to experience its quick burning flame have romantic imagery of uptown heroin fueled sessions of the giants of jazz in black and white blurring all boundaries of music, culture, and race. Truth or not, no one can escape that it’s hip to like Jazz (even if you don’t) . Now, if someone were to mention jazz fusion or worse yet… smooth jazz… you’re likely to imagine the lobby at the worlds most boring dentist office. Its the music of ‘oatmeal man’, the least controversial nice guy that drives a hybrid, meticulously plans his 401k, and makes his kid wear full padding & helmet rollerblading in the driveway… smiling all the while as his wife brow beats him.

However, not all fusion is as boring as your glassy eyes might indicate. In the trenches of sampling, one smooth jazz fusionist stands out as not quite like the others. Bob James, most famous for the theme from Taxi (a tv show you’ve probably never saw (with Latka)) but also created some of the most sampled songs in hip hop history. “Nautilus” has been most famously sampled in Eric B. & Rakim’s “Follow the Leader”, Run-D.M.C.’s “Beats to the Rhyme”, Ghostface Killah’s “Daytona 500” and Jeru the Damaja’s “My Mind Spray” , while the first four measures of “Mardi Gras”  is one of hip hop’s fundamental breakbeats (think Run DMC’s “Peter Piper” and LL Cool J’s “Rock the Bells”), and the sampling of Bob James doesn’t stop there. And all that aside, these songs aren’t horrible oatmeal either, though you may want to stay away from his later works.

Throwback: Bob James – Take Me To Mardi Gras (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Throwback: Bob James – Nautilus (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Those that have been keepin’ the faith already know.

Throwback: Bob James – Sign Of Times (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I don’t know what kind of nerve it takes to rip off the easily recognizable main loops from one of the most classic dance songs of all time, stick little bigger beat behind it, and claim it as your own, but that’s what Alex Kenji & Federico Scavo have done. Now one might be inclined to point out that the original Paperclip People loop comes from Loleatta Holloway’s song ‘Hit and Run’, and so they are just using that same loop. No harm, no foul. But I’m calling bullshit on that they just happened to use the same 2 bar loop ( seriously. 2 bars.) and its all incidental contact. Especially since it’s not like the song Throw was some obscure song. If you’re going to pay homage, then pay homage and give some fucking credit. Otherwise, it’s a shady rip off job, and something to be ashamed of. Sampling is of course the nature of the game… but don’t piss on their leg and say its raining. Especially one of the most recognizable names in dance music, Carl Craig. With all the digital filters, vst’s, and production tricks they could have done a million things to try and distinguish their sample as something new… and yet nothing more than a cheap copy and paste job.

All that aside, it doesn’t make the loop any less magic, but clearly it’s Carls magic. If only they wouldn’t have been such flagrantly asshats about it.

Dryhump Champion: Alex Kenji & Federico Scavo – Gimme Five (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

Should need no introduction.

Dryhump Champion: Paperclip People – Throw (12 Inch Version) (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

The original sample come in at 7:29. See how short it is… now tell me it’s all just a coincidence.

This above all — to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man..
Shakespeare, Hamlet

Fingerbanger 1: Hopeton Lewis – Take It Easy (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

What they really mean is, these boots were made for riding.

Fingerbanger 2: Symarip – These Boots Were Made For Walkin (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-
I’m in a good mood and I wanted to put something out sorta special, but nothing seemed to fit my mood. Well… besides the other 4 songs I posted, but I digress. So I started to look through some of these archaic little disco UFOs and came across a few I have by the Blueheels. Now the Blueheels and I have talked on multiple occasions about doing a feature on here, and all good intentions so far have gotten us a handful of emails and a several Red Stripes. So I’m just going to go ahead and say, the Blueheels get a fair amount of attention around here, and it’s not because they wear snap-front shirts that you can rip open. Wake up – Go to work – Go Home – Go to sleep. The only dance you know…

Fingerbanger 3: Blueheels – Twist & Toil (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

What we do here is just a balance of opposites. I’ll probably be listening to this at the exact time you’re listening to it.

Fingerbanger 4: The Flaming Lips – Ice Drummer (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

In order to change your life you must break free of your present karmic conditioning. You’ve got to change your interpretation of what happens in your life. We get used to a certain way of doing things and continue that pattern out of habit, simply because it is comfortable. In order to change your life, you have to find a way to break the pattern. This is not easy, but people do it every day. The best way is to watch for signs of new possibilities- and those signs come to us in the form of coincidences. – Chopra

Fingerbanger 5: Foster The People – Houdini (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

—-

We’ve done it again! Tunawax is the 2011 Intercontinental Dryhump Champions. But rather than hold it over your heads, we’re giving back…Finely picked dance tracks to go cotton to cotton with.

Since when do I like minimal? Since when do I like textures & patterns? Since always. This is just unreally (unreal + really) awesome. Google sucks. Who the fuck is Kntu?

Dryhump Champion: Kntu – Unstoppable (don lowed)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.