[Spring has sprung! Prospect Park, Brooklyn]
Last spring, two of my favorite bloggers hit me with a tag game so now it is my turn to return the favor. As most regular readers know, I am really not into this sort of thing but Spring is here. The trees and flowers are blooming, the bees are buzzing and the birds are chirping. It’s nice to see the parrots (actually parakeets) flying around in the back yard once again.
In case you forgot, here are the rules:
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.
I’m tagging Bob, Noga, Roland, Mod, Martin, Flesh is Grass and Snoopy.
Here are my selections:
4hero: Golden Age of Life
This is from Two Pages which is a definite departure from their first album, Parallel Universe. One of the first times I heard drum n’ bass with live instrumentation.
Adam F: Circles (Remember this?)
Joyce: Feminina
I love Joyce. Great voice, great guitarist, simply wonderful. Here is the same song live.
Big John Patton: Let ‘Em Roll
Classic groove jazz with Patton on the B3, Grant Green on Guitar, Bobby Hutcherson on vibes and Otis Finch on drums (Song 1 on the link above).
Erule: Listen Up
Dope West Coast true hip-hop.
Pancho Sanchez: Keeper of the Flame
I first heard this on the CD “Bien Sabroso”. This is the same version from his greatest hits CD (Disc 2, Song 4 on the link above).
Visit Venus: Brooklyn Sky Port (download here)
From their first album, “Music for Space Tourism Vol. 1”. If you slept on this when it was first released, check it out. Bonus from the same album: Harlem Overdrive.
Added Song Lists (as they get posted):
Martin in the Margins
Roland (But I am a Liberal!)
Bob from Brockley
Noga (Contentious Centrist)
Snoopy (Simply Jews)
Flesh is Grass
The New Centrist 
I started compiling the list, NC. But I’m a recovering influenziac and still wobbly and depressed. Besides, it’s not really spring here, except in name. Not one blooming sprig in sight. Grass is mostly yellow. And it’s cold. Where is the global warming, that’s what I’d like to know.
Take your time. I’m sorry to hear you are not feeling well. I hope you feel better soon.
After one nice day in the 70s (Saturday) things have gotten cold and rainy here as well.
Well, I’d like to compile a list, but I am not listening to anything at the moment and I couldn’t tell you who is who in popular music.
I mostly listen to classical music on the radio and retreat into my cave afterwards 🙂
Popular music, unpopular music, classical, contemporary, whatever you like, it’s all good Mod.
nowadays I have the memory of a rather slow Gold Fish, I barely remember one tune from another, or much else 😦
I thought I already left a comment here, but it seems not to have appeared. I have a few well overdue memes to pass on, but this one has, of course, jumped to the top of my list.
Your seven are, of course, impeccable. I’ve never heard or even heard of Erule before, but I like the Roy Ayers-y backing track, very sunny. I’d never heard of Visit Venus before either, but I like it.
Mod: I understand.
Bob: Impeccable? That is high praise coming from a connoisseur like yourself.
Erule was (is?) one of those L.A. emcees who had an East Coast flow with a West Coast sensibility. The Nonce was like that too. Ever hear of them? Real good stuff. I miss 90s hip-hop.
The first Visit Venus LP was also released in the 90s (95 or 96). Glad you liked it. They released some other material after this, a four track EP (“Magic Fly Variations”) which is very similar to this LP and then another LP and EP of much darker stuff. They used to have a website but all I was able to find recently was their MySpace Page.
A nice set of tracks TNC. I especially dig the 4Hero track. Unfortunately, the tracks linked through the Rhapsody service are only stream able from the USA. I will have to search them out elsewhere.
The Nonce? Nope, never heard of them. I’m not sufficiently up (down?) on my 90s hip hop. I was more d&b. The hip hop bands I can think of now that I liked in the 90s were MC Average and the Lords of Rap (I think I’ve got that right), the Urban Cookie Collective, the Pharcyde, and all the Daisy Age bands.
Btw, I think “nonce” doesn’t have the same meaning on both sides of the Atlantic. You’d have have a lot of chutzpah to call yourself the Nonce over here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonce_(slang)
OK, done it. Note parakeet coincidence.
Bob, I heard nonce meant something bad in the U.K. Now I know.
I think “The Nonce” were using this definition, “the one or single occasion; the present reason or purpose.”
The 90s were an excellent time for hip-hop, so many good artists. Maybe I’ll do a 90s hip-hop post.
I was definitely down with the d&b too. I was living in the bay area and there were some cool spots. L.A. had some good ones too. I know the scene was not anything close to what you had popping out there but it was a lot of fun times. One memorable occasion was Dorfmeister spinning a straight jungle set. That was the first time I heard “Super Sharp Shooter”. I think it was the first time everyone present heard it and that song made people go crazy. The S. the u. the p. the e. the r.
The Bullet Proof Space Travelers also spun that night. Good stuff.
Super Sharp Shooter, happy memories.
See http://brockley.blogspot.com/2007/09/south-london-memories.html
Notting Hill Carnival, summer in South London…
The thing that turned me on to drum & bass, if I remember rightly, was stumlbing across Shy FX and UK Apache playing in a dusty park near the Millwall stadium at some municipal family festival. All the little kids were dancing, and I thought, how do you dance to these beats? Have these kids genetically evolved to some future stage of human development? But the experience re-wired my hard drive, and I have never looked back! Roni Size, Moose & Navigator, Jacob’s Optical Stairway, Adam F…