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Cameras at the Ceeb
Let’s face it, the Hidden Cameras haven’t really been able to capture the spontaneous kicks of their festive performance frolics in a studio setting. But they come close on the six-track Play The CBC Sessions (Rough Trade) 10-inch EP, which documents two live-in-the-studio sessions from March and November 2002. Joel Gibb ‘s plaintive solo acoustic take on Worms Cannot Swim Nor Can They Walk lives up to the promise of the fab title, but it’s hard to top the elegiac sweep of The Boys Of Melody. It’s a very limited run, so grab it before it’s gone.
Pete and the Prez
You’d expect a Pete Rock collabo with agit-hop crew Dead Prez to produce a funky anti-Bush diatribe or maybe an incisive crack at corporate America that would get heads nodding, but few people could’ve foreseen that they’d come up with anything as straight-up jiggy as Warzone (BBE). Don’t be misled by the title. The first single off Pete Rock’s Soul Survivor 2 (BBE) disc is an all-out club banger, and, unlikely as it seems, pimps, players and backpack revolutionaries alike will be getting their drink on to some Dead Prez all weekend. Believe it.
Disco gold
While lesser production talents were having massive disco hits with thumping over-egged anthems in the late 70s and 80s, Peter Brown and Patrick Adams of P&P fame were creating their own funky-jazzy-soulful alternative to the glitzy mainstream on a shoestring budget. The Uptown Disco Juggernaut (Octipi) LP gathers a few of Brown’s and Adams’s now collectible single tracks recorded with the likes of Scott Davis , Clyde Alexander , Lanier and Cloud One . Disco doesn’t get much better than Florence Miller ‘s The Groove I’m In. Yeah, you need this.
Motor City Five alive
Marginally better-sounding than most bootleg live recordings of the MC5 in action, Thunder Express (Jungle) captures the Motor City madmen in full flight for a television show at Studio Hérouville Castle in 72 performing Kick Out The Jams (Motherfuckers!), the Stones’ Empty Heart, Ramblin’ Rose, Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa, Motor City’s Burning and the rarely performed Chuck Berry-inspired title track. In addition to the six live tunes, Jungle has included the four swank songs from the MC5’s first two highly sought-after garage punk singles – dubbed from crackly vinyl copies – including their incendiary first crack at Looking At You. A timely primer for the Mc5’s appearance at the Phoenix June 9.
