Here's some cool live footage - James White and the Blacks live in 1980, with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein (Blondie) guesting.
James White, or James Chance as he was previously known, dropped out of music school in Wisconsin and moved to New York on the last week of 1975.
James Chance: “I first came to New York on December 27th 1975. I’d been playing sax in Milwaukee, with a band called Death. Walls of feedback. Total incomprehension. I read in The Village Voice there was all this free-type loft jazz happening in Soho, plus little ads for ‘Ramones’ and ‘Television’, and what the hell is a ‘CBGBs’?
"That first night there was a concert with Lester Bowie on Avenue C and Third. I knew nothing about that neighbourhood. I started walking east on Bleecker. There’s CBGBs! Then all of a sudden there’s all these buildings falling down, burned out, vacant lots full of debris, bricks and stones everywhere. Somehow it didn't feel dangerous. In Milwaukee I’d walk around, fantasising about blowing people’s heads off. Here, I’m looking at garbage piled six feet high and I feel at home. I felt like I fit in.” (Mojo interview, 2017)
His first band in New York was helmed by Lydia Lunch, called Teenage Jesus and The Jerks.
Chance: "I met Lydia Lunch at CBGB’s. She was dancing — and no one danced there. In the Midwest everybody danced, and I missed that. I thought it was really stupid that everyone in New York was more concerned with looking cool. She was dancing in the aisles, so I introduced myself. She’d just come down from Rochester and she showed me this long prose poem she’d written. I was really impressed with it.
"By that time I had an apartment on 2nd Street between A and B. It cost about $110 a month. I think it’d been a drug den because it was all boarded up. One day she knocked on my door and said she needed a place to stay. So we lived together for a year or more. It wasn’t like a boyfriend-girlfriend thing. She got some old beat-up guitar and started showing me her songs. I encouraged her.
"So I ended up being in Teenage Jesus for most of ’77. Then she kicked me out because she wanted it to be even more minimal than it already was." (Purple mag interview, 2011)
He went on to form his own band, Contortions, later James Chance and the Contortions, in 1978.
He met Anya Phillips, who he described as a real presence on the scene - they become couple.
Chance: "I watched her from afar and a couple times I tried to talk to her and got slapped down, completely. Lydia hated Anya. She’d plot against her, saying, like, 'Let’s do this and let’s do that to Anya!' And then Anya met a German filmmaker and she went to Germany for a while, and when she came back I was doing the early gigs with The Contortions.
"That X magazine benefit was the first one she came to and the first time I went into the audience attacking people. I sort of worked my way to the back of the audience. She was there sitting in a chair. I saw her and thought, 'Should I attack her? No, better not.' But she came up to me afterward and we started hanging out, and somehow she decided to be Teenage Jesus’s manager. That was a real disaster. I don’t think Lydia ever did one thing that Anya suggested. Lydia did whatever she wanted, so it didn’t last long. Then Anya decided to manage The Contortions, who she didn’t like at all."
The Contortions featured on the seminal no wave compilation 'No New York' produced by Brian Eno, although Chance described it as more of a field document, noting Eno got the bands to set up and play live, which was the extent of his 'producing'.
They recorded their debut album 'Buy' for Ze Records in 1979, featuring their wonderfully angular jagged funk, most notably on the song 'Contort yourself'. That same year, one of the bosses at Ze Records asked James to make a disco album.
Chance: "When we did the Off White album Michael Zilkha, we had a contract with him for the Contortions, we were about to do the Buy album and he said, 'I have another thing in mind. I’m going to give you a budget, and I want you to do a disco album.' Something for $10,000, which wasn’t too bad for an idea as off-the-wall as that. But he didn’t elaborate on it more than that. He just said, 'I want it to be your idea of disco,' and he left it at that.
"He didn’t come to the sessions; he just left it to me to figure out what I was going to do that had some relationship to disco. You couldn’t help to listen to disco then. It was omnipresent. You didn’t have to go to disco clubs, you would hear it in a cab, you would hear it in the stores… you would hear it everywhere.
"So I thought I’d make a disco version of “Contort Yourself.” There was an earlier version that was faster. So what happened was we went to a black disco in St. Paul and somehow convinced the DJ to play it, and people were just completely baffled, and I realized it was too fast for disco. At that time my tempo was influenced by punk rock, so everything was really fast.
"Anyway, Michael decided we needed a new version that was more like disco, so he called August Darnell [aka Kid Creole], who was one of his artists, and he just literally slowed the track down mechanically, and he wrote a new guitar part and put that himself and put background vocals and claps. I wasn’t even there, he just did all that himself, and I just went in and did a new vocal ... I liked it. So it wasn’t really collaboration. He added his own take without consulting me. Which was fine with me! I don’t really collaborate with people too much in terms with sitting down and writing a song." (Vice, Sept 2015 interview)
Ze Records decided to do a festive album in 1981 titled 'A Christmas Record', getting acts on the label to write their own Christmas songs, with NYC via Akron Ohio's The Waitresses delivering an oddball hit 'Christmas Wrapping', alongside Was Not Was, Kid Creole, Suicide, and Material with Nona Hendryx. Chance contributed a tune to the 1982 re-release, the delightfully named 'Christmas with Satan'.
After the Contortions' album came out, the band fell apart and Chance recruited a new lineup including musicians from the downtown jazz scene, including Lester Bowie’s younger brother Joseph, who later started the band Defunkt.
Chance: “Punks hated jazz. The first black faces in No Wave were in my band. We became the top live draw in New York, Anya was going to manage the Mudd Club, but then she had a huge feud with the co-owner.
"Then our Ze Records relationship got destroyed because [label boss] Michael Zilkha hired someone who took a personal grudge against us. We started recording for Chris Stein’s label [Animal Records], then Anya got sick. Then Blondie broke up and Chrysalis dropped Chris’ label. I called my agent one day and there was no agent.” (Mojo interview, 2017) Anya Phillips died of cancer in 1981.
Chance was keen on covering James Brown with his bands, which is probably why they are doing 'I Feel Good' in this live clip from 1980....
In this next clip, Debbie Harry is singing Chic's 'Good Times'. Her and Stein took Chic's Nile Rogers uptown to a rap show in 1979 and Rogers heard the DJs playing 'his' song. Except it had people talking over it. And that's how he discovered that Sugarhill Records had borrowed Chic's tune for 'Rapper's Delight', and not asked him for permission. He later came to an agreement to get a songwriting credit on it for him and his musical partner Bernard Edwards.
A book about record covers with maps on them, what's not to like? Created by Australian cartographer Damien Saunder.
"This truly unique atlas of album covers, each featuring a map, is as enlightening as it is entertaining.
Presenting 415 album covers – beautifully reproduced, expertly laid out and accompanied by deeply researched text – Maps on Vinyl will especially appeal to map enthusiasts, vinyl junkies, music fans, graphic designers and artists.
The book is the brainchild of renowned Australian cartographer Damien Saunder, whose expertise has been utilised by Apple, National Geographic, Earth (the world’s largest atlas) and even Roger Federer. A keen crate-digger, he has amassed possibly the world’s most extensive private collection of records featuring maps on their covers, resulting in this one-of-a-kind book.
Records by artists including Madonna, Oasis, Coldplay, Grateful Dead, Bob Marley, XTC, MC5, Queen, New Order, James Brown, Brian Eno and Weezer are featured, with cover art created by many giants of the design world, including Peter Saville, Curtis McNair, Richard Gray, Alton Kelly, Stanley Mouse, Neville Garrick, Roger Dean and Pedro Bell.
The records headlined span music from 1939 to today, and the book is divided into eight chapters highlighting different aspects of the collection – ‘C(art)ography’, ‘We Built This City’, ‘On the Road’, ‘African Beats’, ‘Astroworlds’, ‘Ocean Whispers’, ‘Maps with Attitude’ and ‘Music from Here’.
Maps on Vinyl is a beautiful artefact, but it’s also an important historical and cultural document, revealing how maps have been used in album cover design to reinforce a lyrical story, share a political view, express concern for the state of the world or creatively identify the origins of the music and the people who make it."
"Saha Gnawa’s self-titled debut pairs Moroccan Gnawa music with NYC jazz and groove, channeling North African futurism through cross-cultural improvisation. Building off centuries-old practices, traditional song forms dissolve into psychedelic outer-space explorations." Single out now, album out October.
Very sad news to wake up to - Mu of Fat Freddy's Drop has died, RNZ reports.
The band have posted this message: "Our talismanic founding member, production maestro, selector and brother, Chris Ta’aloga Faiumu aka DJ MU aka Fitchie has unexpectedly passed away. This is a seismic shift in our world. Sending alofa to the Faiumu & Duckworth aiga, and to MU’s wider aiga of friends and fans worldwide. We ask please that you all respect everyone’s privacy during this difficult time. Hold tight.
Ua maligi loimata i le maua mai o le tala ua fa i lagi lau malaga Chris Ta’aloga Faiumu … DJ MU … Fitchie. O suafa uma nei na lauīloa ai oe ma ōu galuega fa’aofoofogia i tagata fai musika uma i Aotearoa ma le lalolagi atoa. Ua goto le fetū āo, peāu o le vasa, ua motusia le pale sa matou tiu ai Brother ina ua e fai malaga. Alofa atu mo aiga Faiumu ma Duckworth, atoa ma aiga o lo’o tagi mai i ala. Ia manuia lau malaga Chris.
Tears flowed on receiving word that your journey had taken you to the heavens Chris … DJ MU … Fitchie. These were all the titles you were famously known by for your miraculous works to all music makers of Aotearoa and the whole world. The star by which we navigated across the sea has gone and the crowns of flowers that adorned our heads are forever broken since you journeyed Brother. Much love for the Faiumu and Duckworth families, as well as those family members who can only cry from afar. May your journey be blessed Chris."
Steve Shaw wrote in 2002: "Mu himself is a long established DJ. He’s also a well-respected producer and a key figure in the Wellington music scene. Mu started off Fat Freddy’s Drop along with vocalist Dallas Tamaira, just the two of them at first. They recorded a track ['Hope'] for Radio Active’s 10th anniversary CD [in 1998] and ended up totally immersed in the sound. They started doing a lot of gigs, using a sampler to produce the drums and bass. It all started working so they added Iain Gordon from Ebb on keys and guitarist Tehi Mana Kerr – a classically trained player who was performing mainly rock."
I remember going down to Welli in the early 2000s to do a Dub Asylum gig at Bar Bodega, with Trip To The Moon. The gig had a small audience, and was pretty low key. After we played and packed down our gear, Mu and a few of the Fat Freddys guys wandered in and Mu started setting up his MPC, he was a friendly, chatty guy. About an hour later they started playing and the place was absolutely packed. This is before they even had an album out.
Fat Freddy's Drop released their latest album Slo Mo in October last year, putting out the vinyl first.
Mu told RNZ's Tony Stamp "I've been buying records for 40-odd years. I'm the youngest of five kids, I inherited my sister's great little soul collection. My brothers were more into Santana and Neil Young.
"When I hit intermediate I started on a cassette collection, which by the time I finished high school in the late '80s, turned into vinyl. I think the very first record I ever bought was Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life. That's where it all kicked off."
Fat Freddy's Drop first toured Europe and UK in 2003, there's a doco made in 2023 of it. The band went back there almost every summer since, and very few folk here really get how big they were in Europe and UK. For example, in 2014, they sold out London's Alexandra Palace. Thats a 10,000 person venue.
"Documentary on Wellington Jjzz scene featuring Jonathan Crayford, Anthony Donaldson, Leila Adu, Lucien Johnson and Jeff Henderson. Directed by Simone Audissou during the 2004 Jazz Festival in Wellington, which was curated by Anthony Donaldson. All about the joy of group improvisation, which persists in Wellington to this day."
Watched this cool doco on the rise of LA punk bands playing in Chinese restaurants, once all the regular venues had banned them. Wild.
"In the late 1970s, two Chinese restaurants became the unlikely epicenter of L.A.’s burgeoning punk scene. The emerging music form featured fast-paced songs and hard-edged melodies with anti-capitalist messaging. As told through interviews with John Doe (X), Alice Bag (The Bags), Keith Morris (Circle Jerks, Black Flag, OFF!), and Martin Wong (Save Music in Chinatown), and featuring music from current performers such as The Linda Lindas and more."
Unzipped - Prime Sex was a NZ TV documentary that decided to get some fresh local talent to record some originals to use. Ive digitised my CD copy and made a wee playlist.
The lineup featured Supergroove in the same year they released their debut single, Shihad before they had made their first album, Ngaire, These Wilding Ways (ex Screaming Meemees) and a wicked hiphop crew from Wellington called Rough Opinion. Rappers were K.O.S. 163, who later helmed Footsouljahs, and RIQ, who changed his name to The Field Style Orator, then Tha Feelstyle.
This track is their only released recording, but they toured with Supergroove and made their name known on the live front. I remember them opening a few times for my band Hallelujah Picassos, and absolutely ripping up there stage. They were awesome and hard as hell.
You know all of Sly and the Family Stone's big hits, they are timeless classics. Their albums also offer up a magnificently groovy deep dive into what it is to be funky. I have been thinking about doing this mix for a while - I've remember picking up 5 of their albums on CD plus their Greatest Hits from Borders Books back in the late 90s when Borders arrived here in New Zealand, think they were all like $10 each, absolute bargain.
Errico had a cool career post-Sly as a session musician and producer, on albums by The Pointer Sisters, Betty Davis, and Lee Oskar (harmonica player for War). He also toured as drummer for David Bowie, Weather Report, and collaborated with Santana, and Larry Graham.
My favourite Lee Oskar tune is Haunted House, one that Cian (Conch/Ulo) put me onto. Oskar's self-titled solo debut came out in 1976 and featured a number of members of War backing him, plus Greg Errico on several tracks. Errico also produced most of the album and co-wrote several tunes, and held down the producer's seat for Oskar's second solo effort, Before The Rain (1978), which features Haunted House. Errico produced some of Oskar's later records too.
Oskar left his native Denmark at 18, landing in New York to make it big, with his harmonica in his pocket. Following his success with War (out in LA), he later developed his own line of harmonicas.
My copy of Lee Oskar's debut album has still got the price sticker on it from the record store I got it from, Open Mind Music in San Francisco, a store Cian worked in when he lived there in the early 2000s.
Tracks: Trip to your heart / Dynamite / Soul clappin’ / Love City / Colour me true / Plastic Jim / Are you ready / I cannot make it / I’m an animal / Chicken / Into my own thing / Advice / Higher / Only one way out of this mess / Don’t burn baby / Harmony / Underdog / Turn me loose / If this room could talk / Loose booty / The same thing (makes you laugh, makes you cry) / Thankful n’ thoughtful