Been on a complete Miles Davis trip for the past few days broken up with bouts of Dio and Nocturnus. Been a fan of Miles for years. His career stretched from the alte 40's through to the tail end of the 80's. He played a part in almost every new stage of jazz if not influencing it himself. His backing band was made up of future greats and legends in there own right, John McLaughlin, Kenny Garrett, Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, JJ Johnson, Jack De Johnette, its a pretty impressive list. Anyway, you can read all about him on the great man's Wiki page, I thought I would upload one of my favourites from his discography. On The Corner is, after Bitches Brew, his best known effort from his electric period.
He claimed he was influenced by Sly & The Family Stone and Hendrix on this one. Infact there is a story about how in awe of Hendrix Miles was. To quote his biographer " he loved the way he was sticking it to whitey and the man with his guitar playing " Its claimed they even spoke about collaborating but obviously Jimi died. There is a rumour that they recorded some live stuff, I really like to believe that but then it more than likely would have shown up online by now. Just think about what it would have sounded like! Check out this, I know its a Cyndi Lauper tune but Miles made this something else. The recorded version is good, but the live version is superb. There is a peak in the middle, and the note he hits at 5:40 that goes right through me. Superb.
The what? You have never heard of The Last Dragon? One of my all time favourite films? are you some kind of loser? I first saw this film when I was a kid after my mum taped it offa TV late one night ( this was a ritual and a good reason why I saw so many nasty 80's films that I really shouldn't have at that age) This was a film that mixed martial arts, break dancing, hip-hop, blaxploitation, disco and 80's fashion. What is there not to love about it. It was the creation of Berry Gordy, he of Motown Records and the evil mastermind behind Micheal Jackson's ascendancy to the stars. He financed this film, which to this day is one of the biggest commercial flops but financialy was off the scale. The plot involved Taimak ( first acting role) and his quest to attain the "glow". Along the way he falls in love, battles lots of bad guys, learns about feelings and how to dance. It featured various future greats. William H Macy has a slight cameo, Chazz Palminteri plays hood #2 and Prince's lady friend Vanity plays the love interest. And it features Sho'nuff. Julius J. Carry III's finest role to date in my opinion, god rest his soul.
Of course Taimak's acting is immensly wooden, he learned to act on the set. But the fights are ace and they have mixed enough comedy into it as they realise how silly the whole concept is. It always reminded me of some arcade beat em up almost. The oddball characters and set pieces. Good fun facts : Leeroy's younger brother Richie, was the real life younger brother of Sugarhill Gang member Master Gee. The youngest child of the Brown clan is played by Cosby show mainstay Keshia Knight Pulliam. Kanye West has since made the Sho'nuff's trademark shades cool. I would say stole his style. Vanity has been scuttled by Prince, who helped launch her girl band Vanity 6 and if rumour permits James Brown and Nikki Sixx have both been inside her. She was also a crack addict for over a decade and now requires kydney magic to keep her alive. Due to this she decided to become a born again christian or something like that. Tiamak, in his own words " I am still training and practising both my martial arts and acting, I will be on the big screen again soon". He has allegedly written a script for a sequel. Julius J. Carry III is dead.
I bring this up because I was telling a lady friend how amazing it was and tried to find my VHS copy of it but its dissapeared. meaning I can finally move into the 21st century with The Last Dragon and buy the DVD.
.....the bassist! Yes. As a common point of reference and in-joking between my drummer and myself. We always have a little giggle about 90's funk metal bassists. Or more importantly, the clothing. You see, I started playing bass when I was a impressionable 16 year old. At the time it was all about funk metal. You couldn't open a music magazine without seeing a bassist wearing bermuda shorts, a vest/waistcoat combo and a bowler hat. Hair was either pigtailed or kept short and the bass was worn quite low down the knees and held upright. This was a fearsome sight to my young eyes. "They must be so talented" I thought to myself. And more often than not they where. But have you ever tried playing a bass that low down for any length of time? Hell no. Your arms end up hurting, your back aches, you slowly take on a more simian posture. Why do you think Robert Trujillo walks like a crab onstage? Its not a act, he is actually handicapped. Poor him. You see the rest of the band could look like metal knobs but the with a bassist looking like that present they had that important "we-don't-just-own-metal-albums" aura around them. Plus there was doubtless one of them wearing a silly shirt as well. Case in point. LAPD, Korn's pre-nu-metal incarnation.... What a bunch of tools eh? Now I ain't making out I was cool and only listened to Victory Records stuff or anything. I owned some funk metal. As did nearly everyone. Even as late as 2003 America was producing these bands. By that point most had realised the bottom had dropped out of the funk metal genre and had incorporated other styles like reggae, salsa and dancehall into there mess of a sound. Of course most of these people unbuttoned that plaid shirt, hung up the wallet chains and made a proper living of working for Staples or Home Delivery Network. The bassist generally tend to work in music shops now and impress young kids who want to buy a bass with there sick slap bass skills ( believe me, I have been shown this by many a sales assistant with some ethnic beads visible under his shirt collar and his ear pierced right at the top) until the boss tells them off and sends them out back to finish breaking down all that cardboard for the recycling. This really came up as I was digging round a cupboard that contained all the CD's I hide away so that people who visit don't think I am such a clueless tool. But what a little treasure chest. Infectious Grooves, The Urge, HedPE ( who's first album was the best example of rap-metal at the time), Insolence. of course Infectious Grooves still stands up, at least in my head and have gone onto providing Metallica with some extra income as they don't ahve to pay Trujillo royalties for the music he hasn't played on. Just to readress the balance, and to get rid of the sour taste of the 90's in your head I have this video of some Poison Idea. They enver really had much of an interest in funk metal.
Isn't it funny how "metal" some punk bands actually looked?
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