In a somewhat odd nod to the Paradise Garage, Tim Curry dedicates this cut from his second album, Fearless, to the legendary club he “read about … in NY Magazine.”

Though it may not be total utter hotness, how can you not completely enjoy TIM CURRY vamping to a dirty groove seemingly produced by the bored zombie corpse of Marc Bolan? Plus you get David Sanborn on sax!

[via Bits of This, That & the Other]

Perhaps the best use of Q Lazzarus’ “Good-bye Horses” since Buffalo Bill filmed himself transgendrifying inside the depths of his basement disco lair. Too bad I now associate the song with two of the creepiest things ever recorded, as it’s a killer track.

[thx S.M. / via Lethal_Injection]

Outstandingly crisp video of Otis Redding performing the following setlist in Paris on his birthday (parts II-IV after the break):

Part I: Introduction, Shake, Don’t Mess With Cupid
Part II: My Girl, I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (for me, the highlight of the set), Respect
Part III: My Lover’s Prayer, Can’t Turn You Loose, Satisfaction

In Part IV, a bunch of French folks in the audience sing “Happy Birthday” to Otis.  A thousand thanks to whomever posted this. For more live Otis, snatch In Person at the Whisky a Go Go.

Want.

Yeah yeah, you pulled off an epic swindle by manufacturing and marketing punk as something that is neither manufactured nor marketed, but, more importantly, you are responsible for this music video. Pretty rad legacy, dude.

No explanation.

[thx K.S.]

I don’t know who Aeroplane is, but if there was ever a night for some house/garage influenced type stuff it’s tonight — borderline totally warm, but still a little crisp out. Feels good.

[via Let's Mix]

Aw yeah! Nobody makes fun music videos anymore. Perhaps I can ride the hot tub time machine back to 1985, hop the Concorde to Paris, and totally get down with this posse.

Les Rita Mitsouko is Catherine Ringer and Fred Chichin. “Marcia Baila” climbed to number two on French charts in the spring of 1985. From their first album, “Rita Mitsouko.”

[via Saltyka's Music Takeaway]

A rare performance of “Electric Intercourse,” a track that has bounced around a few of Prince’s long list of shelved projects, and, as far as I know, has yet to see the light of day. Recorded during a Minnesota Dance Theater benefit show at First Avenue on August 3, 1983.

The rest of the show, including the (supposed) first live performance of “Purple Rain,” can be seen here.

[ via 2010Dront ]

Erykah Badu hat tips the P-Funk Allstars‘ “Hydrualic Pump” (and nips a kaleidoscopic jones from Funkadelic’s first album too) for the lead single on her holy-crap-will-this-ever-get-released New Amerykah Part II: Return of the Ankh.

Scope the official, full screen-ish, infinitely looping version of the video, complete with Hitler/O’Reilly/SOTU/sock puppet intro, on her website.

Made for the now closed Pop Life exhibit at the Tate Modern. Not sure if this is a WTF, LOL, or OMG. Maybe all three?

From each according to his ability my eye.

Holy shit! Watch this before it gets taken down. The sound and picture quality are totally whack, but this version of “Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)” is epic.

Prince and Wendy Melvoin are pretty front and center throughout, and you can kind of make out Matt Fink and Bobby Z. in the background. Brown Mark’s bass neck makes it into the left of the frame, and I guess Lisa Coleman has her keyboard rig set up on the other side of the drums.

[thx O.W.]

The District may be buried under a modest amount of snow at the moment, but here’s hoping we’re not too far off from the warm environs of this post-apocalyptic, pseudo-futuristic, western music video. Lensed by James Cameron for Bill Paxton’s band Martini Ranch, “Reach” is a most bizarre reunion for the casts and crews of Aliens and Near Dark — including Kathryn Bigelow, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser, and Jenette “LET’S ROCK” Goldstein.

The music gods certainly don’t look kindly upon the song itself, but sometimes you can’t help but enjoy something that sounds like a Stock Aitken Waterman production and includes Judge Reinhold getting credit for whistling. For the truly adventurous/masochistic, the song can be found on their 1988 album, “Holy Cow.”

[via My Life as a Mixtape]

GERMAN BOLD ITALIC — the one, and only, song about a typeface (which was included as a .ttf on the CD single!). Being a Kylie superfan, it is mildly perplexing how the video for this song eluded me until today. From Towa Tei’s 1998 album, Sound Museum. Video by Stéphane Sednaoui.

Towa Tei - Sound Museum (1998)

01. Sound Museum
02. Time After Time
03. Happy
04. B.M.T.
05. Higher
06. Corridor
07. GBI (German Bold Italic)
08. Tamilano
09. Private Eyes
10. Everything We Do Is Music

[via Music Heaven]

Hail young knaves, your new anthem for pillage and plunder is here! Prince’s extra special fight song for the Minnesota Vikings may be lacking in the musical department, however, considering he probably wrote, recorded and released it all in the span of about 15 minutes, it actually sounds pretty OK.

Trailer Trash Tracys - “Candy Girl”

Equal parts Twin Peaks and Jesus and Mary Chain. Exactly the kind of hissy, sludgy, recorded-from-another-room, shoegaze crap that I’m totally in the mood for right now. “Candy Girl” and two more tracks of the same ilk are up on their Myspace page.

[ thx to T.V. / via Seven Noises ]

Video by Ed Tannenbaum. Music by Mighty Dog (?), a group that has managed to escape being logged by the world wide interwebs. Dancing by Pons Maar, who likely has the coolest name on this, or any, planet. See the same effect in action on this National Geographic special, and this episode of Fame.

As if the baby making anthems “Choosey Lover” and “Between the Sheets” weren’t enough to carry The Isley Brothers’ 1983 LP Between the Sheets, the bros go and throw this house-ish number in towards the end for good measure. Good on you dudes.

The Isley Brothers - Between
the Sheets (1983)

01. Choosey Lover
02. Touch Me
03. I Need Your Body
04. Between the Sheets
05. Let’s Make Love Tonight
06. Ballad for the Fallen Soldier
07. Slow Down Children
08. Way Out Love
09. Gettin’ Over
10. Rock You Good

[via So Good Music]

Check those lucite guitars and Orange amps! Curved Air’s “Back Street Luv,” from their aptly titled second album, Second Album, hit number four on UK charts in August of 1971. The vocals on the album version have a groovy stereo effect going for them, though the rest of the LP is a bit middling. However, definitely scope the punchy, propulsive “Everdance.” I’d bet $10 that Stereolab has jonesed on it pretty hard at some point.

Curved Air - Second Album (1971)

01. Young Mother
02. Back Street Luv
03. Jumbo
04. You Know
05. Puppets
06. Everdance
07. Bright Summer’s Day ‘68
08. Piece of Mind

[album via Rock Revolt]

Along with Wham’s “Last Christmas,” this sludgy, Don Was-produced sad-fest stands as one of the few Christmas songs I can stomach on repeat listens. While George Michael attempts to rise above holiday doldrums by giving his heart to someone special, Cristina, Ze Records' preeminent misfit princess, deadpans her way through them with brutal reality:

Merry Christmas, dammit.

[via Rooms With Brittle Views]

On the Jools Holland hosted show The Tube, UK DJ Greg Wilson shows off his wheels of steel, complete with tape effects (!), with a bit of simple mixing of David Joseph’s “You Can’t Hide (Your Love From Me).”

Joseph’s classic single hails from his boogie-drenched album The Joys of Life:

David Joseph - The Joys of Life (1983)
01. No Time to Waste
02. Joys of Life
03. Guiding Star
04. Baby Won’t You Take My Love
05. You Can’t Hide (Your Love From Me)
06. Dreaming
07. Be a Star
08. I’m so in Love
09. Do You Feel My Love Now Baby
10. Discover (Bonus)
11. You Can’t Hide (Your Love From Me) (Extended)

[album via Edufunky]

Broadcast on BBC Four this past October, Synth Britannia gives a decent, straightforward overview of the emergence of synthesizers in popular British music in the late 70s/early 80s. Time has been rather kind to most of the musicians interviewed, including Phil Oakey, John Foxx, Gary Numan, Andrew McCluskey, Martin Gore, Vince Clarke, etc, and most seem like pretty ok guys who very much believed in the direction they were taking music. Nobody interviewed, however, seemed to be able to pronounce “Moog” correctly … but I digress.

Worth a watch if you’ve ever gotten all dreamy eyed while thinking about the Mute Records catalog, or, alternately, if you’re into peeking at sexy close ups of Fairlight CMIs and B roll of London streets.

Synth Britannia - 90 minutes:
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9

Though sadly only represented via blurry surrogate in this video, Annie Lennox’s backing vocals on “Darling Don’t Leave Me” still, unsurprisingly, manage to outshine the robotic sprechgesang of Robert Görl, the former drummer of Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft. From Görl’s 1984 solo album, Night Full of Tension.

Tired of looming over you deck of Oblique Strategies, thinking about how you totally got that Brian Eno name drop James Murphy laid out in the last issue of Spin magazine? Bored with postulating “what it must have been like” to hang with Bowie in Berlin? Disenchanted with the non-music revolution you hoped to start when you picked up that MicroKorg at Guitar Center?

Fret no more! You can now mix an ambient soundscape all by your lonesome at inbflat.net. Props to the girl with the DS-10 synthesizer (2nd column, 3rd row), but my money is on the dude with the e-bowed banjo (5th column, 2nd row).

[ thx to K.F. ]

Dope Classics @ Cafe St Ex
Thursday, September 10th
No cover, music @ 10:00

Pete & Co. of Fatback fame asked me to join them at this month’s Dope Classics. An honor indeed! I just broke the 32 year old seal on a Star Wars storybook/soundtrack LP I’ve been hoarding for a rainy day, SO GET YO MINDS READY FOR THAT SHIT.

In a rather unlikely pairing, H.R. Giger lensed this pair of videos (2nd after the jump) for tracks on Debbie Harry’s 1981 solo semi-flop, KooKoo.

While I somewhat dig the album’s production, by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic, I mostly just want to find out where I can get my hands on one of those necronom/alien bodysuits she’s wearing in “Now I Know You Know”. If I had the bread, I could at least fork out for a Harkonnen chair, which was originally intended for use in the Dune movie, like the one Harry sits on at the end.

Debbie Harry - KooKoo (1981)
01. Jump Jump
02. The Jam Was Moving
03. Chrome
04. Surrender
05. Inner City Spillover
06. Backfired
07. Now I Know You Know
08. Under Arrest
09. Military Rap
10. Oasis

[ via Jukebox - Music Box ]

A garish video accompanies delightful new and unexpected music from Mi and La’u, purveyors of sparsely orchestrated lullabies and creators of this unsung gem. Evidently, they’re also set to soundtrack this season’s Chanel ads.

Via Borne Recordings.

Tiny airplanes traverse director Hiraki Sawa’s London flat in the video for “Small Metal Gods,” the lead track from David Sylvian’s latest album, Manafon.

Due out September 14th, the album comes in both standard and deluxe editions.

The former Baby Spice jocks Sweet Charity and doles out an irresistibly swank number that glides & sashays all over your limbic system’s sweet spots.  Fated to be rediscovered by the next generation’s Stereolab.  From 2003’s Free Me.

Bonus Sweet Charity scene, directed and choreographed by the apparently weightless Bob Fosse, after the break:

The cosmic folks over at Sunsetcorp dice up Fleetwood Mac’s “Only Over You,” from their 1982 album Mirage, into all sorts of awesome.

They give the same treatment to Chris De Burgh’s “Lady in Red,” featuring a giant, undulating, rainbow staircase thing reaching to the heights of the interstellar megalopolis I see every night in computer fueled fever dreams. Rad, man.

[Thx to Matt Hawkins at Fort 90]

Live on NBC’s The Midnight Special in 1973. Sailing on some shredtacular guitarsplosions, Focus’ “Hocus Pocus” managed to scoot up to #9 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Originally released on their 1971 LP Moving Waves. [via Rock Revolt]

I have no idea what this is or what it’s saying, but Tokyo Jihen, led by (the apparently prodigious) Shiina Ringo (referential to Sheena Easton & Ringo Starr?) continues the tradition of the majors’ Japanese arms pushing product that would be unthinkable on these shores — like local heros Make-Up sparring Afrirampo.

I’ll have what she’s having, thanks.

Chants! Masks! Go-Go Dancer! Facial Hair! Magically fixed guitar strap! Yeah!

Listen to it on the home brew compilation Martin Circus - Ca Le Fera (1969-2001). It’s a bit hit-or-miss, but totally funshiney nonetheless.

[via Baistophe]

I imagine it’s highly likely you’re already being someone’s little baby.

[via The Smoking Gun]

Sista - 4 All the Sistas Around da World (1994)

An entirely dope, and somehow unreleased, album from 1994. Produced by DeVante Swing and featuring a young Missy Elliott and Timbaland, it’s mildly befuddling how this has never made it into print. Should the video recorded for the single “Brand New” strike your fancy, feel free to pick up the one copy of the album listed for sale on Amazon … only $521.96!

[via fromthaold2thanew]

I’m cool with this “DMV Has A Dream” stuff, but do we really need Lady Gaga involved?

(Hat tip to ADW)

First Touch - s/t (2009)
01. Toe Jammin’
02. 80s Babies
03. Just Feel It
04. Let Me Get Next to You
05. Pleasure for Your Treasure,
06. Whoop
07. Night Groovin’
08. It’s Yours
09. So Close to You
10. All Because of You

Ten tracks of tasty instrumental boogie courtesy of First Touch, a duo hailing from Mannheim, Germany.

Available as a free download from their label, High Steppin’ Records. Sweet!

[via Beat Electric]

From their 1982 LP White Feathers. [Via New Romantic Rules]

Savage Progress - “My Soul Unwraps Tonight”

According to their myspace page, these dudes/dudettes/whoevers are from somewhere in Maryland. This makes me feel moderately better about my native state.

Also, should anyone else have taken a particular liking to Thin Lizzy and/or Os Diagonais as a result of choice mixinstituter selections, the albums those tracks are on are both quite rad I must say:

Sent to me the other day by a good friend with the subject: “I mark this as the official beginning of the early 90s comeback.” It draws pretty heavy from the 80s too, but that in no way dissipates my desire for an early 90s comback. TRUTH.

The quick cuts of the video become a bit nauseating after awhile, but the mix by Machine Drum is pretty hot stuff.

A leopard jumpsuited Marc Bolan introduces Paul Weller and co. on his 1977 TV show Marc.

The Jam’s “All Around the World” (b/w “Carnaby Street”) hit #13 on the UK singles chart in ‘77. You can find it on the first disc of the Direction Reaction Creation box set.
[Via Noisejunkie]

In the alternate future-past of 2076 via 1976, robot space stewardesses will play keytar versions of this while serving rainbow colored foaming cocktails on intergalactic flights to tropical cyberpunk star systems.

1200 bones will land you a MK III version of one of these beasts courtesy of some dude in Fredricksburg.

Came across this while browsing french-new-wave.com. Sounds sort of like Erik Satie with a Juno and a 4-track.

From the 1984 album Passions Divisées (re-released in 1988 as First Songs Vol. 1).
[Via Voxinsana]

Rick James - Mary Jane (mp3)

So this song isn’t exactly about a foxy lady, but, well, close enough. To all those dudes and babes out there, be most excellent to each other this evening.

[Via Funkclassicmaster]