The Earl of Edgecombe has been up to his old tricks, here mashing one of the previously unavailable tracks from the 25th Anniversary Edition of My Life In The Bush of Ghosts (the track called Pitch to Voltage) with the planetary hit from Jamie Foxx, Unpredictable, with predictable results.

More info about My Life In The Bush of Ghosts here. You can buy the Jamie Foxx record here. The Earl of Edgecombe’s previous mixes are available here and here.

Word arrives today that the Golden Bear Awards last night at the Berlin Film Festival featured several numbers performed by… Nina Hagen?! That’s not unlike the Academy Awards featuring special musical guest Diamanda Galas. As if.

This track comes from Hagen’s first American release, 1982’s Nunsexmonkrock, which holds up surprisingly well. The song features samples of Cosma Shiva herself, who is Hagen’s daughter born in 1981. The music technology may sound quaintly dated, but there’s no shelf-life on Hagen’s extraordinary voice and blasphemous sensibility. That’s not a sample from Earth Wind & Fire’s Boogie Nights, just an appropriated riff; someone who has the time, please make a mashup of Boogie Nights and Cosma Shiva. Thanks.

You can find Nunsexmonkrock paired with four tracks from 1979’s Nina Hagen Band here. The Nina Hagen Electronic Shrine is here. You can see Nina Hagen interviewed on David Letterman’s show in 1985 here, which includes a clip from a live show in Brazil.

For an Avant-Funk outfit, mid-eighties group400 Blows weren’t very Avant, but what they lacked in challenging musical sensibility they made up for with bone-shaking grooves, stellar production, archetypal synth horns, and smooooth vocals. Is there a whole genre of dance music with a cowbell hit on the downbeat of each measure, or is that a unique idea? I’m just asking.

400 Blows sadly faded back into oblivion to the point that there’s barely a mention of them on the internets today, and all of their music is out of print. Where’s the justice in that? Perhaps they went on to have satisfying careers in some other field. I’m taking this from my old 1985 12″ single. If you really feel the need, you could track down your own used vinyl copy here.

A big welcome to those of you landing here for the first time from Soul Sides. This one’s for you.

It’s a somewhat obscure track from The J.B’s, a shifting cast of characters who have all played in James Brown’s band in various forms. This track, written by drummer Clyde Stubblefield, comes from their 2002 throwback album Bring The Funk On Down. The full title is There’s a Price to Pay to Live in Paradise, and it’s one of my favorite J.B.’s tracks. It was actually momentarily in the running to be the title track of The Wire, but we ended up using it as a throwaway in the back of Stringer’s print shop.

You can find Bring The Funk On Down here.

I’ve got a few cuts spinning in the Soul Sides Summer Songs extravaganza. If you don’t know Soul Sides, you should stop by there and stock up on some fresh tunes, served regularly with love by Mr. Oliver Wang, aka DJ O-Dub. Soul Sides is one of the towering institutions of the mp3 blogosphere, and for good reason. It was the first blog that I visited regularly for mp3s, and was one of the main inspirations for starting The Ten Thousand Things. So get on over there and get yerself some Summer Lovin’.

When The Hounds of Hell are on your tail or The Dogs of Summer are nipping at your heels, throw them this bone for best results.

In 1982 George Clinton emerged from the wreckage of the crashed Funkadelic mothership with his first solo album, Computer Games, which included this song. Atomic Dog sounded quite different than most American pop music at that time, with its backwards drums, nonsense chants, grunts, chipmunk vocals, and mechanical synth hooks, but the single nevertheless took the number one spot on the R&B charts for four weeks.

This is the deliciously satiating extended Atomic Mix version, not the shorter version released as a single and appearing on Computer Games (which is out of print). You can find this long version on the Rhino compilation Phat Trax 3 here, or you can get the good compilation The Best of George Clinton for a measly $6.98 here, which includes the original short version.

In 1974 William De Vaughn spent $900 of his own hard-earned money to record this song which went on to become a huge hit. It’s main lyric

Diamond in the back
Sunroof top
Digging the scene with a gangster lean

became part of the language of soul.

You can find this on De Vaughn’s album of the same name, or on many compilations, including the excellent Harlem Sessions which I am taking it from. The song was also very succesfully sampled/covered by Massive Attack on their 1991 debut record Blue Lines. You can buy Harlem Sessions here.

Cutty from the cut did not get the girl, but he did get to listen to Curtis Mayfield sing Underground. The song of course comes from Mayfield’s 1971 album Roots. 1971 was a good year for soul, seeing also Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Isaac Hayes’ Shaft, and Sly & the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On.

You can buy Roots here for a very reasonable $9.99, which is the remastered Rhino CD containing four extra song versions.

This is the opening track from my favorite Nona Hendryx record, the 1983 disc called simply Nona, produced by Bill Laswell. After leaving Pati LaBelles’s Blue Belles, Hendryx was a busy session musician and when it came time to do her own records, a stellar cast returned her favors and assembled an allstar smartfunk band including Nile Rodgers, Sly Dunbar, Bernie Worrel, Afrika Bambaataa, and Laurie Anderson. I could go on.

I saw her play a couple of times in the 80’s, once as part of Talking Heads big band on the Remain In Light tour, and then as a solo act in Los Angeles promoting her 1984 record The Art of Defense. She’s a stunning performer, with a commanding presence and an all-powerful voice.

Unfortunately all of Nona Hendryx’ catalog is now out of print, but you can support her by visiting the store at her official site, where there are links to some of her side projects which are available. The artist’s site is here.

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band have been at the forefront of the Brass Band revival in New Orleans over the last twenty-five years, but The Treme Brass Band are the real heart of the scene, and Uncle Lionel Batiste beats his bass drum at the heart of the heart, along with Kirk Joseph on sousaphone and Benny Jones on snare. The Treme are best seen and heard in the street at a second line parade, or at Donna’s Bar and Grill on Rampart, but the 1996 CD that this is the title track from is the next best thing. It also includes a fantastic version of The Old Rugged Cross, which was the inspiration for my own cover version on the CD Shadow Economy in 2000.

The image here is of Uncle Lionel’s bass drum; my sister Genevieve Leyh painted it for him in 1999. There’s a profile of Uncle Lionel here, and the record company page for this CD is here. You can buy Gimme My Money Back here.