30 September 2016, No. 194, Marvin Gaye, ‘‘T’ Plays It Cool’

Not to be confused with “Tee’s Happy,” the B side of Northend’s “Happy Days” 12 inch and No. 467 on our list, today’s tune is from a movie I’ve never seen. Now that I know Marvin Gaye composed the score and the soundtrack for Trouble Man, I may check it out. No. 194 is “‘T’ Plays It Cool,” and for my taste it’s a little too laid back to be the second cut on an LP, but that by no means disqualifies it from our list. Bolsters its presence, in fact, since having some lower-energy tunes in a long set is always a plus. People need to order drinks and go to the restroom, talk to one another and be heard for a few minutes. After laying down a mushy Minimoog texture (the synth itself a gift from Stevie Wonder), Gaye’s staccato pecking with a quick decay on the filter envelope builds enough steam to support Trevor Lawrence’s sax solo, which while climactic still plays it relatively cool.

The character Mr. T in Trouble Man has nothing to do with bouncer-turned-bodyguard-turned-actor Mr. T, who in 1972 was either in college or the Army and whose acting career didn’t commence until the 1980s. While looking into this, I learned that the real-life Mr. T’s signature gold jewelry started as a collection of items lost on the dance floor and in fights at the club where he was a bouncer. I guess many potential claimants decided not to bother when they saw such an imposing lost and found.

Back to the record, if you listen closely there are pretty distinct, heavily reverbed hand claps throughout most of the song, and I picture Marvin Gaye standing near a microphone, clapping along to whichever elements they’d tracked so far. I like to imagine it was in a big echo chamber, not done with a plate reverb, and that’s possible since it was recorded in an L.A. film studio. Mean sax solo notwithstanding, this tune gets a “funk/chill” designation in the genre ID3 tag, and I think you’ll agree that it’s both.


29 September 2016, No. 193, Instant Funk, ‘Philly Jump’

I don’t know if No. 193, the “Philly Jump,” was a dance craze that ever caught on, but it did ride a promotional wave of killer horn licks and a catchy refrain courtesy of Instant Funk. I also don’t know if it’s apparent or not yet in the record show that I’ve got an affinity for songs that call out the names of cities I’ve lived in or near, and this one calls out West Philly in particular, which garners it extra points. I’d take more synths, but the tune is sufficiently funky without, so it makes the list. Get down with the Philly jump, woo-ooh.

28 September 2016, No. 192, Hot Chocolate, ‘You Sexy Thing’

We’ve been off the list for a long time writing about other records, and it feels strange to come back without having reported on all the mixtapes I’ve got up my sleeve, but I’m still putting the finishing touches on, and we’re building suspense, right? Like a novel in serial.

We’re coming back to the list on a high note, like we really did believe in miracles. It’s the “sexy thing” part of the song that rings truer, though, and boosts every listener’s ego.

No. 192, Hot Chocolate, “You Sexy Thing.”

27 September 2016: JJC Mixtape Archive 11 – Trippin’ at the (Nu) Disco

Trippin’ at the (Nu) Disco
July 2014

When I made this mixtape I selected tunes that were already at least five years old to raise the point that this “nu” disco thing wasn’t even all that new anymore. It’s not a point I care deeply about, but all the kids in my town were acting like Daft Punk invented a new genre with “Get Lucky,” so I wanted to put out some old favorites from the “nu” genre. I think one day it will all just be disco, cf. rock and classic rock and how the timeframe for that rock which is ‘classic’ is constantly creeping forward, staying about ten years behind the contemporary stuff.

A few tunes on this mixtape sort of push at the boundaries of the genre. There’s a strong rap vibe in the first half thanks to remixes from DJ Day, DJ Apt One, and DJ Ayres, and I think the Trans Am, IQU, and Matmos cuts wouldn’t have been labeled “nu disco” when they came out. !!! maybe, and DFA. Not that genre boundaries are super important to me; there’s probably stuff on here people would argue doesn’t fit at all. Spoon we could argue about, or Apt One’s all-electro Debbie Deb x DJ Mehdi mashup.

This marks the end of an era of JJC mixtapes, and now I’ll go back to writing the regular record show. Believe me I’ll write it daily because I’m excited to hit No. 200 and then drop the new mixtape I’ve been working on. There may even be more than one.





26 September 2016: JJC Mixtape Archive 10 – Pepsi

Pepsi
June 2014

There are some great tunes on this mixtape, some of the best of any of these mixtapes, but it’s a lazy mixtape. Fich told me once to play my records longer and let them do the work, and that’s what I was doing here: taking a long, lazy approach to mixing. It’s as if a broad, general view of things really is what’s called for in the end.





23 September 2016: JJC Mixtape Archive 9 – Android Love Sensation

Android Love Sensation
August 2013

This mixtape starts with a cut from the only CD I’ve purchased for its retail price in a long, long time. Why the CD? I generally don’t pay real money for rare records, and this Disco Dream and the Androids CD was remastered and put out by the artist directly, so I went for it. (I think you can still get one too.) I’m glad I did. The tunes from this CD, “Disco Robots” from Superfunk, and “MYB (Move Your Body)” from Oliver were the main things I wanted to showcase, and I think without the Disco Dream and Androids disc, I might not have made the mixtape.

I’m not sure why I kept the mix so short. Matches my attention span, I suppose. This is also maybe where the naming convention I’m using for the new tapes started. Take a word or phrase from the first song in the mix and mash it up with a word or phrase from the last song in the mix. I’m not the first person to have named things like this, I know; I think it’s actually a pretty stock convention of the mashup genre, which is why I wrote “mash it up” up there, plus I loved the Mash It Up ska compilations when I was a teenager. The jackin’ disco robot jams on this quick dance mix are a long aesthetic way away from Mr. Cranky, but hey, my taste contains multitudes, as do I.





21 September 2016: JJC Mixtape Archive 8 – Strictly Commercial

Strictly Commercial: Featuring 35 Top Dance Hits
October 2012

When I moved back to the States from Indonesia, I was excited to find some smaller rooms in which to play funkier music. The town I moved to wasn’t awesome, but it had a few venues, and I glommed onto the gay night at one of them and resumed purveying the kinds of tunes I usually write about here on the record show—dusty disco, funk, and soul. I was glad to get away from the kind of stuff that’s on the last two tapes.

A few weeks into my new residency, which the bartender let me name “Agenda,” one of the regulars came up to the booth and said, “Don’t you ever play anything new? Anything that’s on the radio?”

She wanted to hear Major Lazer’s “Bubble Butt” and “Headband” from B.o.B., so I begrudgingly started going through the Billboard and Beatport charts and pulling out everything that was tolerable. I also found a few standouts that are actually pretty good, especially because a lot of deep house and nu-disco in the Beatport chart was sampling stuff that’s really good. I suppose it was worth it. Parts of the crowd were pleased, and the dancing got pretty dirty for a well-lit bar on a weeknight. Nevertheless, those hours I spent dropping a needle on every tune in those charts are hours I won’t get back. And if there are any hours I can get back, here’s hoping they’re not the ones during which I listened to even 10 seconds of Jason Aldean, Carrie Underwood, or Kenny Chesney.

Like many products for the mass market, some of this music is disposable. It has big, layered sawtooth synth leads and hard-hitting bass sounds, but that’s about all there is to recommend it. All of these tracks (except the ODB a cappella in the intro mashup) I pulled from the Beatport Top 100 and the Billboard Hot 100, hence the mixtape title and soulless ephemerality of some of the selections. That said, this mixtape comprises the best stuff I winnowed from the charts, and the transitions are exceptional when compared to the preceding live mixes I did in Indonesia, since blending these records in Ableton is a lot like snapping LEGOs together. I couldn’t help but give it a snarky name and a generic, UPC-inspired cover. Of course, it’s a mere four years later and already I’m feeling a little nostalgic for some of these insipid tunes. Well, whatever. Bubble gum tastes good too.