Category: music

  • George Clinton – Atomic Dog

    Atomic Dog, from 1982 is an absolute granddaddy of a track by George Clinton, responsible for so many samples(seriously, go look for yourself, it’s a hell of a list), and perhaps his definitive solo track. High squealing keyboards lead to a low, dirtiest of dirty funky basslines and a wonderfully surreal set of lyrics growled…

  • Aretha Franklin performs Rock Steady

    Aretha Franklin performs Rock Steady live on Soul Train in 1973, episode 55. Now this is a serious sampletastic record, used heavily in late 80s hip-hop for its vocal breakdown. Here’s just one example, the incenduary Mi Uzi Weighs a Ton by Public Enemy: That’s where I think I first encountered it. The song itself…

  • Al Green – Love and Happiness – Live

    I love an old Soul Train clip, and this is a corker, Love and Happiness by Al Green performed live. This is made by the start: Eyebrow raise, footstomp, go. Only found out the other day that Billy Preston (of “Get Back” by him and The Beatles fame, amongst many other things) played keyboards on…

  • Third World – Now that we found love

    Third World – Now that we found love 1978 Cracking bit of late 1970s reggae.

  • Funkadelic – Flashlight (Live in Houston, 1978)

    Funkadelic playing live, bringing down the spaceship. Just listen to that bassline. It’s huge, loud, distorted and so very very funky. Like it’s being played by a 5,000 foot high robot made of bass notes, echo and funk. Perfect.

  • Uptown Funk Empire – Boogie

    Quite simply, an amazingly funky groove.

  • Daft Punk | Random Access Memories | The Collaborators: Nile Rodgers by TheCreatorsProject

    What’s that? You want to see Nile Rodgers talking about working with Daft Punk, and playing various riffs that he’s written over the years? Well that’s lucky then…

  • For Your Love – The Yardbirds

    Don’t know why I’ve got such a connection to this song, just seems embedded in me. And this page too.

  • The mid-life crisis officially starts NOW.

    So I appear to have bought a bass guitar. This is an unexpected development for the year. I wasn’t planning on it at all, although I’d started to have favourable feelings about the idea of trying to learn bass guitar a little while ago after I discovered that I preferred following basslines to lead guitar…

  • Bowie on the Internet

    Today Jack Schofield tweeted an old article from the Guardian in 1999, Tomorrow’s Rock ‘n’ Roll , where David Bowie talks to Emma Brockes about his recently-discovered love for the internet. It’s a fascinating document of the time for me, a few months before I started working “in the internet” (for want of a better description) and at a…