Hello I hope you’re all well and truly enjoying the sunny days, that you’re all recovering rapidly from the various excesses you have no doubt indulged in one festival or ten, and of course, I hope you saved some cash for some record shopping….
We have been fairly quiet since with this heat, people prefer to hang out in parks and of course, records tend to be allergic to sunshine, and unless they were produced by Stock Aitken and Waterman, they shall not be used as freesbees!!!
So this week I am really going to make it short and simply inform you that we will have a new art exhibition coming from my compatriot Mr Manu Bugallo-Vales after Mr Vallade just came today to take down all his great friendly colourful prints off our walls. We should be having a private view on Friday 28th, from 18.30 until 21.00pm or so… there’ll be a few complimentary drinks and some very nice peeps… we might even indulge on some bits of Dj’ing for good measure!
So this week our new rack is pretty much as all over the place as it can ever get : here’s a pick of the ones that I have managed to re read from my awful writing on the notepad :
The Sylvers “showcase”, The forever great Al Green (that my friend Hazel interviewed recently for the Stool pigeon) performing live in Tokyo, The Emotions “so I can love you”, The specials, a few yummy Kraftwerk 12’s on capitol, Brian Eno (tiger mountain-another green world), a couple of magical Roy Orbison original mono pressings on the London label in superb condition, a great double lp anthology of Jazz trumpeter extraordinaire Eddie Henderson, a nice bunch of original first press Smiths, Moz and his grand dad Marc Bolan and T Rex, , the great reggae compilations “tighten up” vol 1 to 5, a couple of George Benson Lp’s I has never seen before, (“space” and “white Rabbit”), Johnny Hammond’s “forever Taurus” “Don’t let the system get you” and “higher ground”, Soul Survivors, Dr Octagon, Joni Mitchell’s “blue” in it’s gatefold original Minnt condition, and a lot of cracking 12inches of all genres that I am just too lazy to bother mentioning…
Hope to see some of you soon, once our good old rainy weather makes it’s long awaited come back !
All the best!
Philippe@ratrecords.
Hello my precious group members!
Today, I am going to poke a little bit of fun out of the spotify/last Fm generation… just for fun really, nothing wrong with these two services who are simply there to make our life easier and make us discover new bands that sound like each others or have some form of affinity ( I actually wonder if they could go as far as allowing the user to decide the criteria , for example : I want songs all from the same producer, a full selection of duets from 1975, songs that were never played on radio 1, songs that would get me rid of my neighbours forever etc etc).
Anyway, let’s get to my point : first of all, I am not going to engage in a (lost) crusade against these two, it would be as pointless as the British habit of pouring milk into tea.
People love these services and they are bound to improve with time…so I am certainly not looking to put them down, and I actually believe they benefit small shops like ours.
No, my point is that I have been wondering how these programs deal with bands with multiple names… you see, for instance, back in January, an female US artist going by the name of Santogold had to change her stage name to Santigold… that is because some other bloke called Santo Gold filed a court case and clearly won… which made me wonder who is the Santogold on spotify then?
Still the girl apparently-as the bloke was some kind of loser from the 80’s nobody in his right mind wants to remember… But then I wondered : hold on…. are these programs actually capable of making the difference between homonyms????
Now on paper there should not be that many troubles since there should not be many bands around that have the same name… but take Nirvana, who of course settled their court case with the 60’s uk band for $100.000 and yet allowed them to keep their names, or Heavenly, who are both a French power metal band and a UK disbanded (thank god) indie outlet, or even Richard Thompson the folk/rock guitar hero, who is also a US jazz pianist… or Jet, who were a 70’s glam rock band and now some indie rock band from OZ… to be honest, the list is endless, Broadcast (both a bad blues band and the uk post pop signed on Warp), the Spinners, Magma… come on boys and girls, send me your knowledge !!!! ( Jim Backhaus, I am waiting for yours impatiently ;-).
So please, if you use spotify/last fm and have been fooled into listening to Japanese noise core when you expected New Age chilliness, or wondered why you got to listen to some obscure folky band from Liverpool when you were looking for Prokofiev’s “masterpiece” Peter and the wolf, feel free to post your comments on our group’s page and share with us your experiences on what you have to admit, is a fascinatingly pointless blog subject…. or just let us know how you use these programs… most of you are into underground stuff and as such, do you reckon you actually find your happiness there? Have you ever been out to buy a record after discovering it on there? Let’s have a bit of inter reaction here for once!
Right, to the records for Saturday now…. we have been sitting on a lot of brilliant stock recently and it is now about to make it’s way to the racks of the shop!
It is mostly vintage Soul, rare Funk and Reggae, and classic 70’s Pop Rock and bits and bobs of electro funk, late 80’s Hip Hop and Indie. Also some cool Chappel recorded music library, cool Jazz/Fusion and West African rarities, and still some classy late 90’s compilations from BBE, Soul Jazz and co…
As I mentioned last week, some of our regulars are away on holidays, so this is the right time to come down and grab a real classic at the sort of price that makes you feel guilty to dare taking it to the counter!
Some name drop for good measure : Cornell Campbell, Abyssinians, Hooker N’ Heat, Lonnie Smith, James Brown’s “Mutha’s nature”, Ivor Cutler, Fred Wesley and the J.B.’s, Andy Bey, Brian Augers, Carlton and the Shoes, The rimshots, JJ Jackson, Jellybread, George Clinton’s amazing “the brides of Funkenstein”, Mutantes…. oh, and loads of really cheap Disco 1 and Reggae 12’s !
Wishing you all a good week ahead.
Philippe at Rat Records
Hello there you vinyl hunters or vultures, depending on the point of view…
During the “summer”, Saturday mornings are a little quieter, not the least because our most famous
vinyl obsessive is out playing his brand of sub bass everything as Moody Boyz (and god, does he wear his name well, bless him!), at various festivals, so it’s all bonus for those who actually make it early as he generally snaps half the new stock in one arm….
So what is he going to miss this week end? Well, Tom brought us a nice collection of late 80’s to early 90’s indie pop, that means plenty of Joy Division, New order, Galaxy 500, Jesus and mary chain, Pixies, Happy Mondays, Tom tom club, Talking heads, Yellow, Laibach, Pistols, Suicide, The fall, Foetus, The smiths, the Fall…. the list goes on, but all you need to know is that it is all in totally excellent condition and it has a few very sought after pieces in there!
Also dropped in the mix, some excellent recent Indie, the Coral, Art Brut, The Cribs…not sure what else exactly, but if it is your thing it is worth coming down as it’s all looking new and priced cheaper than a fish and chips.
Later in the week, a nice lady came in and employed my services to unload her boot of a few dusty Soul and Reggae LP’s, and there’s pleanty of brilliant stuff from this one :
A Lee “scratch” Perry boxet looks well tasty, the second volume of ON U Sound “pay it back” comps, 12’s and 10inches by the likes of Greg Isacs, Dennis Brown, and loads I’ve never even heard about before on labels set up in sheds on a beach in Jamaica….
Also some nice LPs by the likes of the techniques, U roy, Prince Buster (who’s surely made the filthiest record ever… and one of the funniest too-ask for details), Derrick Harriott, Maria Griffiths and Mr Desmond Dekker to name a few.
We’ll also drop a few pieces of classic rare soul (Jimmy Lewis, Marlena Shaw, Genesis [yes the genesis from Motown....], Nancy Wilson and Curtis Mayfield classics, and also some 90’s hip Hop albums from Tribe called quest, Pharcyde, Ultramagnetic MC’s, DasEFX and a few other more.
There’s also, as always, a few classic rock gems, Mr J. Cash at st Quentin, The electric flag, plenty of Beatles and Bowie and even some bits and bobs of Electro classics, such as “voodoo ray” and some such!
To finish, big shout to Freddy Frogs for making the ultimate anthem for the Frenchman in London :
here’s the link to the video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjWUXXPSXC0
Han han hee han!!!!!
Philippe.