Note to all of those who will soon travel to the Southwest of Japan in search of records: even though you might have heard stories of mint copies of James Knight and the Butlers’ solitary LP and sealed copies of Syl Johnson’s Is It Because I’m Black turning up in the “Rare Groove Sale” section of random Kyoto record stores, sometimes it’s more fitting to use your off day after a sold-out show in Osaka digging for the best riverside crab tempura in Arashiyama, and spend the evening drinking Mersaults from the late ’70s….

This much time in Japan without an update? Can mean only one thing: a sold-out show with Madlib and J.Rocc in Tokyo, Stone Coal White-vibes in a smokey basement lounge, congratulatory cakes served up at the United Arrows/Stones Throw Pop-Up Shop by a Japanese Don Draper looking sommelier while Nigerian psych resonated through posh loudspeakers, an acetate of the Mighty Riders (sic) solitary album, a $4000 UK issue of Leaf Hound’s hard-rock opus, an hour in line amongst Chinese tourists in 90+ degree heat at 7.30 am in Tsukiji Fish Market for sushi at Daiwa, boutiques named after arcane jazz bassists, and, of course, Ghetto Dining.

Sorry, that’s more than one thing….Photos from Osaka later.

16 hours in transit to Narita Airport from LAX, 3 hours to Shibuya from Narita, good fish, a beer and a shot of sake and it’s off ’till tomorrow: records at Fillmore, the Stones Throw pop up shop at United Arrows, J.Rocc arriving, and more.

Today, Egon departs Los Angeles towards Japan with Madlib and Stones Throw art director Jeff Jank to meet J.Rocc, already on his way there from New York City. The goal? The grand-opening of the Stones Throw “pop up” shop at United Arrows, a Now-Again special on J-Wave radio, and a couple DJ gigs in Tokyo and Osaka. Sound familiar? If so, maybe you’re thinking of last year’s tour with Cut Chemist. If you missed those dispatches, follow the links below. And stay tuned for updates from the far East this coming week.

Link: Egon and Cut Chemist in Japan, 2009, Day One. .
Link: Egon and Cut Chemist in Japan, 2009. Day One and a Half.
Link: Egon and Cut Chemist in Japan, 2009. Day Two.
Link: Egon and Cut Chemist in Japan, 2009. Days Three and Four.

Seu Jorge and Almaz final performance at Club Nokia was hailed by the LA Times as show in which “….a charismatic pop chameleon and his band subtly but decisively transform cover tunes….. (Seu Jorge) wasn’t indulging in nostalgic reveries. He was demonstrating how songs forever locked in our mental jukeboxes can be subtly but decisively transformed by a suggestive bass line, a spooky dub makeover, a shotgun blast of anguished emotion.”

See photos from the show by Kiwamu Omae, below, and read about the LA Times review in full. We’d like to close this tour diary by shouting out everyone who made this tour such a success: Seu Jorge and Almaz, Mariana Jorge, Gustavo da Lua, Francisco Hernandez, Pierre Chenne, Raquel Jorge and everyone at Cafune, Brazil, Pedja and Julien, Christian Bernhardt and The Agency Group, Havana Joe, KCRW, KEXP and all of the radio stations that helped out along the way and all of the promoters who made these shows possible. Thanks y’all!

Photos: Seu Jorge and Almaz Onstage at Club Nokia, LA.
Review: Seu Jorge and Almaz Live At Club Nokia In The LA Times.

Seu Jorge and Almaz wrapped their North American tour this past Saturday at Downtown L.A.’s Club Nokia. Before the show, the band and members of tour’s production crew – and a host of friends and family – gathered backstage as Seu Jorge waxed poetic on the three-week journey. Photos from the show coming tomorrow.

Photos: Seu Jorge and Almaz Backstage at Club Nokia, LA.

Yesterday Seu Jorge and Almaz performed an intimate private party sponsored by Sagatiba cachaça, Cafune Produções and Now-Again Records at West Hollywood’s Palihouse Hotel. Afterwards, guests mingled with Almaz and the likes of directors Michel Gondry and Jose Padilha as Almaz producer Mario C DJed. Tonight, Seu Jorge and Almaz wrap up their North American Tour at downtown LA’s Club Nokia.

Photos: Seu Jorge and Almaz at Palihouse Hotel, Los Angeles.

As the Kashmere Stage Band documentary Thundersoul continues to make the festival rounds, we here at Now-Again get a bit more serious about the idea that record collector and indie-distribution kingpin Joe Mansfield have been discussing for a while now: the definitive Kashmere Stage Band eight-LP box set. That day might come soon…. take a look at the sheet music that Mansfield dug out of his collection yesterday, above.

Yes, at one point in the distant past, any high school student in the nation could attempt to recreate the magical funk that the high school students at Kashmere Senior High School played under the direction of Conrad O. Johnson. An example is below.

Download: Kashmere Stage Band “Super Bad (Egon’s extended edit)” from our Texas Funk anthology.

We really don’t know how the good folks at Cheyenne, Wyoming’s World Psychedelic Funk Classics have the time to dig up so many incredible global-psych-funk joints and compile them… maybe the lack of decent local records to rediscover (the Soul Reflections’ “Grooving in the Basement” notwithstanding) has something to do with it. Anyway – their latest, an investigation into the “Aesthetic Expressions Of Psychedelic Funk Music In India,” is due out later this year. We just got a sneak peak at the cover and it looks miiiiighty promising.

We’re a bit late to the party on this one – but this mix is so damn good that we couldn’t help but link you to it. Even if we’re two weeks late! Thanks to Alex Chase at One Handed Music for posting Paul White’s mix for the BBC’s Tom Ravenscroft.

Link: Paul White’s BBC 6Music Mix.

Yeah, we know – Madlib’s not “on” Now-Again, but Egon’s overseen most every Madlib project at Stones Throw post Quasimoto’s The Unseen - and The Beat Konducta grabs liberally from the Now-Again crates. And you know that our official L.A. Listening Party partner is Palate Food + Wine…. So it’s only natural (we guess?) that we’d be announcing that the Madlib/Intelligentsia collaborative espresso blend that we’ve been working on for the past year – available while supplies last, beginning tonight, at their newly-opened Pasadena location – here.

If you’re in the L.A. area, come through tonight and enjoy some of The Loop Digga’s finest with us.

Seu Jorge and Almaz are on their way across the country to Vancouver – and then they head south for their West Coast run in the United States. They’re stopping in San Francisco at the Regency Ballroom: buy tickets at the link below and read the article in the SF Weekly (who describe the album as having an “aura of a quiet victory.”)

Buy Tickets: Seu Jorge and Almaz at The Regency Ballroom/SF.
Link: Seu Jorge and Almaz in SF Weekly

Seu Jorge and Almaz performed what the Boston Globe has described as “a celebration” at Boston’s Royale this past Saturday. After the show, they took a few minutes to peruse West African psychedelic, funk, afro-beat and highlife records offered for sale by celebrated Nigerian collector Uchenna Ikonne before heading North to the border for their show at the Osheaga Festival in Montreal.

Link: Boston Globe on Seu Jorge and Almaz.

New York showed plenty of love for Seu Jorge and Almaz. Yesterday, the stalwart website Brooklyn Vegan ran their photos and show review; New York’s biggest newspaper ran an album review. An excerpt from The New York Times:

“It’s pretty blissful music, stubborn in its antiprofessionalism, soulful in its garage-iness. It makes strong and simple rearrangements of formerly lush songs. It’s not trying too hard, and then suddenly it is: in “Cristina,” Seu Jorge hollers the refrain as loud as his voice will go, channeling his source, the singer Tim Maia; in Jorge Ben’s “Errare Humanum Est,” the whole performance, with thick crusts of surf guitar and shuffling drums, takes on a mysterious strength, a trancelike shimmer. ”

Link: Photos of Seu Jorge and Almaz at Brooklyn Vegan.

The above photo was taken this past Friday at the end of Seu Jorge and Almaz’s encore at their New York City stop on their North American tour. Over 2,000 fans came to Terminal 5 to see Seu Jorge and Almaz perform their album in its entirety, and catch a Bowie-cover or two, and – in the encore – Jorge’s solo-guitar and percussion performance of “Carolina.”