The latest post in Egon’s NPR series Funk Archaeology couldn’t have come at a more opportune time for anyone recently introduced to the wonders of the Kashmere Stage Band. This investigation into Houston jazz drummer, educator and label owner Bubbha Thomas’ Summer Jazz Workshop – and the nearly impossible to source 45s released by the high school students that participated in the program in the early 70s – colors the Kashmere Stage Band experience and helps explain just how this one Texas city managed to release so much damn-good adolescent funk music.
A few months back we announced that that we’d be releasing an anthology that centered around a mythical album by the US Army band East of Underground. Well, we’re now proud to announce Hell Below: faithful reissues of the three albums released by the winners of the US Army’s First and Second Annual Original Magnificent Special Services Entertainment Showband Contests. Packaged as LP and CD box sets, Hell Below presents nearly two hours of heavy funk and soul music played by United States Army soldiers enlisted during the politically turbulent early 1970s.
East of Underground, SOAP The Black Seeds and The Sound Trek were bands comprised of soldiers stationed in bases across Western Germany during the height of the Vietnam War. While little is known about the bands, the players, and the milieu they came from – other than what can be pieced together from a handful of photos and documents found in a box in the New York Public Library, and the vague recollections of some of those involved – we at Now-Again Records have worked diligently with the United States Army and researchers the country over to present this important document, and some damn good music to boot.
Each of the two double-billed albums contained in this box set is presented as an exact reproduction of the original United States Army issue. The extensive, full-color booklet features essays, annotation and a collection of Army ephemera from the creation of these albums. Also included is a full-color, exact reproduction of East Of Underground’s 1971 tour poster.
We apologize to our international fans who cannot watch Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx gush about the Kashmere Stage Band documentary Thunder Soul on Jay Leno’s show. So we’re also posting the New York Times’ review – they singled it out as a “Critics’ Pick” in yesterday’s paper – below. It’s going to be a great opening week for this film!
“You may never have heard of the Kashmere Stage Band, but by the end of “Thunder Soul” you will wonder why. A big-hearted, back-in-the-day tribute — and a stand-alone argument for public-school music programs — Mark Landsman’s bittersweet documentary has designs on your feet, heart and mind.
Celebrating a black Texas high school band that, from 1968 to ’77, vaulted over the color barrier to win nationwide contests, lay down albums and travel to Japan — with financial support from, of all people, Alabama’s governor at the time, George C. Wallace — the film is a riot of impossible Afros and irresistible beats.
Anchored by a 2008 reunion concert in honor of the band’s former teacher, the 92-year-old musical firebrand Conrad O. Johnson Sr. (known to everyone as Prof), a wealth of archival film resurrects a time of civil unrest and racial friction. While the middle-aged alumni, some of whom haven’t touched an instrument in decades, face the daunting task of whipping themselves into performance shape, their spirited interviews bless the day Prof chose a hometown girl and a high school gig over a blossoming musical career. By introducing funky licks, fancy footwork and many of his own compositions to the band’s stodgy set list of jazz standards, this indomitable leader (whose declining health adds a poignant twang to the film’s final scenes) instilled racial pride alongside musical competency.
The power of the tunes remains valuable, but the legacy of an inspirational teacher? Priceless.”
Nearly two years ago, we announced that we were assembling an anthology of the best Nigerian psych-fuzz-funk tracks from the country’s golden years of the early to mid 1970s in conjunction with Uchenna Ikonne and New-Zealand based psych-zealot Heavyfuzz. There was a catch, though: After a series of missteps dealing with shady middle men and copyright “holding companies” who claimed to represent bands and artists that had no connection, we helped send Ikonne back to Nigeria to track down – and officially license – each track for their anthology from the bandmembers themsselves. That was, as far as we could tell, a first for a Nigerian comp of this sort – but is the only way that we like to do business.
The process took Ikonne the better part of a year, and, although he returned with stacks of licenses, records culled from radio stations tucked deep in Eastern Nigeria’s “psych-funk-belt,” never-before-published photos and scores of interviews, he wasn’t able to track down every artist he was after. Thus, our comp was delayed.
Back Stateside, though, Ikonne found one of the missing links: Question Mark’s bandleader Franklin Izuorah. Living in Texas, working as a family therapist, yet still playing music, Izuorah signed on. The timing was perfect – right around the release of Madlb’s Medicine Show #3, Beat Konducta In Africa. The Loop Digga drew from Question Mark’s “Love” for his “Endless Cold (Lovelost)” and Ikonne and Egon worked to put the finishing touches on their anthology.
Well, it’s nearly a year later – and their white-whale of an anthology is almost done…. But, in the interim, they teamed up with Germany’s Shadoks to reissue Question Mark’s album in full, packaged with an extensive interview that Ikonne conducted with Izuorah and percussionist Uzo Aguiefo. You can download “Love” below.
We’re pleased to have an official French photographer – Mr. Mass – as he supplies us with images of shows that we couldn’t possibly believe happened unless we saw the proof ourselves. A barefooted Dimlite playing alongside Julian Sartorious at New Morning in Paris this past Friday for dancing girls onstage? Yeah, it happened: see above. Mr. Purple Brain, Paul White, was there too: see below..
