Now-Again Records

Update: Stark Reality “Acting, Thinking, Feeling” Release Date; Part One Available Now Via Now-Again Deluxe

Acting, Thinking, Feeling: the Stark Reality’s complete works will be released Feb. 5th, 2013 as a 6LP/3CD box set. The complete Stark Reality Discovers Hoagy Carmichael’s Music Shop album available now to our subscribers at Now-Again Deluxe!

A couple of months ago, we announced that both the 6LP and 3CD versions of this anthology – which we’re calling Acting, Thinking, Feeling – are now in production. We’ve now confirmed that both formats will be released worldwide on February 5th, 2013.

As we noted, Included will be the entirety of their AJP-issued album The Stark Reality Discovers Hoagy Carmichael’s Music Shop. This is the first time that this album has been reissued in its entirety – and has been restored and remastered from brand new master tape transfers. The album is now available to our subscribers at Now-Again Deluxe. The second half of our Acting, Thinking, Feeling anthology will be available via Now-Again Deluxe in less than two weeks.

More Info: About Now-Again Deluxe
Subscribe Now: https://drip.fm/nowagain

Egon’s Radio Nova Podcast – Sweet Funk And Soul A La Loving On The Flip Side (Free Download!)

France’s Radio Nova just broadcast Egon’s exclusive Loving On The Flip Side mix and if you – like us – weren’t in Paris this past Saturday, you can still find the mix archived on Radio Nova’s podcast page. Included in the mix are a few unique companions to our sweet funk anthology, Loving On The Flip Side: in stores now.

Pictured above – The Black Conspirators, whose “Love” appears on Loving On The Flip Side.

Tracklist:

1. Frankie Zhivago Young with the Boris Gardner Happening: Somebody Stole Your Love Pt. 1
2. Lee Bonds with James Reese: It’s Not But So Much Love Can Do
3. East Of Underground: I Love You For All Seasons
4. Soul Majestics: I Done Told You Baby
5. Patricia Denson and The Soul Expressions: I Thought I Heard You Moan
6. Jean and Donnella: Get Ready (For That Day)
7. Symphonic 4: Who Do You Think You’re Fooling (Pts. 1 and 2 – from Loving On The Flip Side).
8. The Prophet and his Disciples: You Fool, You Fool Pt. 1
. Disciples of Soul: Together (from Loving On The Flip Side).

Link (Stream): Egon’s Loving On The Flip Side mix on Radio Nova.
Link (Download): Egon’s Loving On The Flip Side mix on Radio Nova.

Zamrock Aplenty In 2013

Followers of this label’s releases know Jason “Moss” Connoy as the collector and enthusiast whose investigations – and amazing record archive – lead to our Those Shocking Shaking Days anthology and who recently issued two essential companion pieces to that compilation: his AKA album and Benny Soebardja’s The Lizard Years.

He’s also the intrepid type who will just show up in Lusaka, Zambia, with nothing but Canadian dollars and an insurmountable desire to discover…. and come home rarities like the first press of WITCH’s Introduction, pictured below. This record is so rare that a photo of it wasn’t even included in our We Intend To Cause Havoc! anthology.

Moss also came back with a series of records which will figure into our forthcoming Ngozi Family anthology, our follow up to Rikki Ililonga and Musi-O-Tunya’s Dark Sunrise (Musi-O-Tunya’s second, excellent album Give Love To Your Children) and our overall anthology of the Zamrock scene: all three albums are slated for 2013 releases.

Coming in 2013: Stephen David Heitkotter

Stephen David Heitkotter’s solitary album – a bedroom trip he recorded in Fresno, California in 1971 after the Vietnam war disbanded his Roadrunners garage rock band and which was pressed as a demo in a run of twenty five copies – is one of the rarest and most sought after artifacts of the 1970s. Above, you can see a picture of Stephen taken shortly before the recording of the album held by Egon and Stephen’s brother Bill (right), from whom we secured the rights to reissue this album.

Stephen’s story – mythologized versions of which have already made the internet rounds – is a sad one, but his music is primal, funky, fuzzy and, of course amazing. We’re hot on the heels of unreleased material from the sessions at Heitkotters’ East Kerckhoff address; our office is full of the paintings he created there between 1970 and 1972. When we do tie this one up, it’s going to be special. Pictured below – Egon purchasing an original copy of the album from Bill’s ex-wife, Madeline – whose brother had received the record from Stephen when he was twelve years old and had carried it with him as he crossed the world the past forty years. Special, indeed!

Photos by Andrew Gura.

Out Now: Loving On The Flip Side, Sweet Funk and Beat-Heavy Ballads, 1969-1977.

Buy at the Now-Again Bandcamp: Loving On The Flip Side

Loving On The Flip Side – Sweet Funk and Beat-Heavy Ballads, 1969-1977. 21 rare and unreleased tracks; 2LP or CD with 80-page book filled with rare photos and each band’s story.

Loving On The Flip Side collects the overlooked ballads from the flip sides of the funk 45s in the Now-Again and Truth and Soul vaults and is presented in the same format that we developed for our Soul Cal anthology. The music contained on Loving On The Flip Side is too damn good to be anonymously relaunched, decades after musical visionaries blended the best of heavy funk and sweet soul into a unified whole. Thus, Loving On The Flip Side again offers the enthused a chance to listen to, read about and reflect on another great burst of black American creativity: the creation of the sublime genre we like to call “sweet funk.”

It was the Darling Dears and Funky Heavy’s beautiful two-sider that set this record in motion, nearly ten years back. Those two songs precipitated the sweet funk genre: the dichotomy of Funky Heavy’s skull snapping rhythm section and the teenage Dears’ angelic harmonies didn’t sound like anything we’d heard before. That discovery set off a decade long search for the band and culminated in their discovery, the documenting of their stories, the emergence of their master tapes and the inclusion of their songs on Loving On The Flip Side.

The excitement we felt while listening to the Darling Dears and Funky Heavy’s masterworks forced us and the New York-based production team known as Truth & Soul back into the field, in search of other sweet funk swooners and beat-heavy ballads to round out this anthology. The opportunity to present anew such wondrous soul music made the exhaustive process that produced Loving On The Flip Side worthwhile, and allowed us to collect one-offs that escaped prior investigations into the deep funk and sweet soul genres.

Loving On The Flip Side was presented as both a gatefold 2LP and a CD – both formats with a perfect-bound, 80 page book printed on heavyweight, uncoated paper stock. The gatefold 2LP with book sold out and was replaced by a standard 2LP.