Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Basement Crates: Classics Edition 2

The Wiseguys: Real Vibes (Black Market, 1994)

I have been looking for this for so long. Of course, my mistake was I wasn't looking for something in an ancient Harthouse promo sleeve in the pile of records tucked under the gas meter at the back of the basement. Finding this was a wonderful moment. I honestly don't think I've even seen this for at least ten years. When I first heard it, in the early summer of 1994, it sounded incredible. Like a mix of a hundred records I barely knew but already loved thrown together with an admirable sense of reckless abandon.

The fact of the matter is, you just couldn't release something this stuffed with samples anymore. You'd get shut down. And I love the fact they've not tried to replay or hide anything - just pulled a load of old soul and funk records they loved and walloped them together as if they were DJing the backroom of some suburban pub on a Saturday night. It's like DJ Shadow with a Stella Artois hangover, a Benson stuffed between his badly looked-after teeth.

I post this particulary for Danny at Office Naps who is a huge Johnny Harris fan. Huge enough to appreciate the great slice of JH whacked on the end of this, anyway...

And, yes, I am available for Wedding Photo jobs too.

Enjoy!

2 comments:

DJ Little Danny said...

Fantastic; took me a few minutes figure out the reason for the Johnny Harris reference - and then the skies opened up (at 6:45, to be exact). Oh, for the days of easy funk samples again.

Thanks y'all - keep up the good work!

Rob said...

Hey Danny
Great to have you here! I'd never even heard of JH when I first heard this - I thought it was the Love Unlimited Orchestra or someone. There's really something irrestistable about that piano, isn't there?