News from the darkest corners...

Welcome to the Lagos Disco Inferno, the first compilation of rare, Nigerian Disco to be released outside of Africa. Compiled by Frank Gossner of Voodoofunk.com, this record contains 12 tracks that represent the sound of Lagos in the late 1970s.

Dean Disi (Music Journalist and formerly Director of Lagos based label TYC Records) wrote the liner notes for this album:

“It was the era of sheer ecstasy. The music not only represents the vibrancy of youthful expressionism of the time but is also deeply rooted in African rhythm though not traditional in phraseology…
This collection of songs marks the development of Nigerian urban pop culture… There was diametric difference in the music of the discos and the music play by the groups. Disco music as played by the DJs was essentially western. The fans could connect with this easily. It was hip, urban and stimulating. The young Nigerian groups were hooked on it and tried to play it but with a distinctive African stamp of their own.”

Some of the artists on this record were stars of their times while others remained in obscurity.

And here is what makes Nigerian Disco so special: Lagos by the 1970s was a huge metropolitan city. Due to the oil boom, there was money to be made with music and nightlife and big international record labels like EMI, Decca and Philips had set up their recording studios that for a big part got equipped with vintage hardware handed down from their European franchises. So as the sound of the late 70s and early 80s in Europe and in the US got more and more modern and from todays point of view just plain shitty, overloaded with ugly sounding Roland keyboards, the sound of Lagos was dominated by powerful horn sections, heavy drums and percussion instruments. There’s plenty of early Moog synthesizers but no synth-generated strings or fake horns.

EMI’s house producer Emmanuel Odenusi had worked with Fela for many years, defining the sound of Afrobeat. Kayode Salami who produced another couple of tracks on this album also was responsible for the incredible sound of the famous debut LP by Psych-Rock group Ofege.

Lagos, a uniquely vibrant, gritty, energetic and sometimes quite dangerous tropical metropolis has always been much more than just a city. A state of mind where third world poverty met the oil boom, where African traditions clashed with Western decadence.

Make no mistake, this stuff will have you dance in a feverish rush in no time.

Lagos Disco Inferno will be out on cd and vinyl mid-february.

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Dale Hawkins, best known for his 1957 hit “Suzie Q” (also known as “Suzy-Q”), has died in Little Rock, Arkansas at the age of 73, of complications from colon cancer.

Born August 23, 1936 in Goldmine, Louisiana, Hawkins was a singer, guitarist, and songwriter called “the archictect of Swamp Rock Boogie.”

From his website: “”His swamp rock classic, ‘Susie Q,’ crackles with the manic energy of that restless time, and conjures instant images of steamy Southern nights. It features a 15-year-old James Burton on guitar, the first of many guitar wizards Dale would discover and nurture. Others included Scotty Moore, Joe Osborn, Roy Buchanan, Fred Carter, Jr., and Kenny Paulsen.

“Dale’s early experiments in production in the studios of Shreveport’s KWKH with Merle Kilgore and Johnny Horton developed the skills that would later produce hits for the Uniques, Five Americans, Jon & Robin & the In Crowd, Michael Nesmith, Harry Nilsson, and others. Along the way, he even found time to host “The Big Big Beat” aka “The Dale Hawkins Show” on WCAU-TV in Philadelphia.”

“Suzie Q” was covered by among others, the Rolling Stones in 1964, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, who recorded an 11-minute quasi-psychedelic version on their first LP in 1968.

Among Hawkins’ other hits were “La Do Da Da,” later recorded by the Blue Things. He has been inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and The Lousiana Music Hall of Fame.

Saxophonist Sir John Dankworth, one of the leading figures in British jazz for more than half a century, has died on february 6th. He was 82.

The saxophonist worked closely with jazz legends like Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson during his career. He also wrote the first theme for the classic television series “The Avengers.”

His wife, the singer Cleo Laine, announced the death from the stage during a concert to mark the 40th anniversary of a music venue they founded next to their home in Buckinghamshire, north of London.

Born in Essex, southeast England, in 1927, Dankworth played the clarinet as a boy before entering the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London at 17.

Inspired by the American jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, he switched instruments and soon began composing, arranging and recording music on both sides of the Atlantic.

In 1959, Dankworth and his jazz orchestra began touring the United States and they performed with Duke Ellington, who later became a close friend.

Over the next decade, he wrote scores for 1960s films like “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” and “Modesty Blaise.” One of his most famous pieces of work was the original theme for “The Avengers,” the British spy drama starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg.

Quincy Jones is spearheading a 25th anniversary recording of the charity hit composed by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, “We Are the World”, with proceeds going to Haiti relief.

The new version will be recorded on Monday in Los Angeles, reports E! Online, and the line-up is rumored to include Jennifer Hudson, Will Smith, Jason Mraz, Sugarland, Sheryl Crow and teen star Justin Bieber, among others.

Jones, the legendary producer who made “Thriller” with Michael Jackson, is being coy about exactly who will appear on the CD. “I want to get a final list before I put it out,” he says.

Director Paul Haggis will likely film Monday’s recording session, a source confirms.

DEVO are to perform at the official 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

The new wave band, who have recently been working on new material produced by Santigold, will play at the Whistler Medals Plaza venue on February 22, with the performance set to be broadcast on NBC.

Singer Mark Mothersbaugh hinted that fans could expect to hear new material from the band at the gig.

DEVO’s performance is part of the Whistler Victory Ceremonies, which runs from February 13-27 and features the likes of Feist, Usher and The Fray.

Memphis musician Jay Lindsey, better known as Jay Reatard, was found dead in his Midtown home this morning, according to family and friends.

Memphis police have opened a death investigation, spokesman Jennifer Robinson said. Lindsey was found around 3:30 a.m. in his bed, Robinson said.

On the Web site of Goner Records, the following statement was posted this afternoon: “It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our good friend Jay Reatard. Jay died in his sleep last night. We will pass along information about funeral arrangements when they are made public.”

We just learned that New York street/performance poet Bingo Gazingo died on january 1st.

Bingo Gazingo (June 2, 1924 – January 1, 2010) was an elderly poet and former postal worker from New York City. Two versions, each also titled Bingo Gazingo, have been released of the only single-artist album ever released by WFMU — the first on cassette, the second on CD.

The album consists of Bingo’s reading his poems to an improvised musical accompaniment by WFMU DJs R. Stevie Moore, Bob Brainen, Dennis Diken, Dave Amels, Chris Bolger and Chris Butler, and engineered by Amels. Often, while performing live, the background music to his frantic, poetic incantations is nothing more than a cassette tape inserted into a cheap cigar-box tape recorder and miked.

Bingo’s poetry often contain hilarious rhyme schemes and crude language, with titles like “Up Your Jurassic Park” and “I Love You So Fucking Much I Can’t Shit”. In the past he has penned hyper-caffeinated odes to Madonna, Tupac Shakur, and Beavis and Butthead, and had his “Everything’s O.K. at the O.K. Corral” (a dreamy remniscence of the cowboy movie serials by an old nurse-attended man) featured on a 1996 CD produced by the famed Greenwich Village coffeehouse Fast Folk Cafe.

Born Murray Wachs in Queens in 1924, Bingo Gazingo wrote music for most of his life, struggling on the edge of obscurity. He continued to actively write, record and perform perverse, edgy music until the day he died at 85 years old, struck down by a cab on his way to perform at the Bowery Poetry Club in late 2009.

More Frank Zappa dvd news:

200 Motels, the legendary Frank Zappa film, is due for release in early February. The film which was written by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer and directed by Tony Palmer features Frank Zappa and the Mothers alongside guest appearances by Ringo Starr and Keith Moon. The film was groundbreaking at the time as it was filmed on videotape. The film has now been restored using the original source material and the work overseen by Tony Palmer who has also recorded a director’s commentary as a bonus feature. More details can be found here:

www.frankzappa200motelsdvd.com

When an artist, regardless of his significance, lists his favourite musicians and performers it is usually met with little fanfare, as over time the names mentioned are almost certainly going to change. But when Frank Zappa did likewise, and actually published a record of his most important influences on the inside cover of his debut album, it became a road map to the music he was to make over the following forty years. Even in the early 1990s, when asked about his most-loved composers, musicians and artists, he would repeat names from this, by then legendary, index.

This film explores the musical roots of Frank Zappa by putting The Freak Out List under the microscope and tracing the lineage from the most pivotal names thereon to the recordings and performances of the man himself. Featuring rare footage of Zappa and the Mothers plus archive film of Freak Out List artists, exclusive interviews with The Mothers Of Invention’s Ian Underwood, Don Preston and George Duke, 1950s Doo Wop legends, The Cadillacs, contributions from Zappa biographers Ben Watson and Greg Russo, Edgard Varèse biographer Alan Clayson, experimental modern music historian Professor David Nicholls, soul and R’n’B expert Robert Pruter, and many others.

Also features numerous seldom seen photographs, news archive, radio spots and a host of other features which all together make for a fascinating, unique and hugely watchable programme.

Extra features include: extended interviews; featurette ‘Frank Zappa’s Record Collection’; illustrated contributor biographies; and more.

On Thursday, April 29th 2010, in what could be one of the few possible upgrades in both rarity and uniqueness to a live Jandek performance, Thurston Moore will join the legendary Texas recluse for a one-time, on stage collaboration.

Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Oregon will house this extraordinary event, as they did for one of Jandek’s earliest live shows nearly four years ago. That show, also produced by Jackpot Records, sold out and was released on cd to widespread acclaim as the album ‘Portland Thursday’. The subsequent years have only enhanced clamor and interest in this true outsider musician.

Thurston Moore, front man for Sonic Youth and aficionado of all things reasonably unique, is a dream collaborator, ramping up the possibilities for what this night could bring. This show, like the musicians themselves, is here only once and then gone forever.

The performance begins at 7PM and is open to all ages. $20 gets you in the door.

Tickets available at both Jackpot Records locations:

Jackpot Records Hawthorne
3574 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR 97214 P: 503-239-7561
Jackpot Records Downtown
203 SW 9th Ave, Portland, OR 97205 / P: 503-222-0990
www.jackpotrecords.com

and online here.

Kraftwerk have confirmed that they are recording a new album. The iconic group insisted that they are not worried about getting older and have no plans to quit making music in the foreseeable future. When asked about the possibility of new material, frontman Ralf Hutter told German magazine Der Spiegel: “Of course. Why should we stop doing what we love to do?

The 63-year-old musician also spoke about the hierarchy within the group, maintaining that the band is “still autonomous and independent”.

Kraftwerk formed in 1970 and are regarded as one of the most influential electronic acts of all time. In November 2008, founder member Florian Schneider shocked fans when he left to embark on a solo career.

Liam Clancy, the man Bob Dylan described as the “greatest ballad singer” he had ever heard has died. He was 74.

Clancy died at Bon Secours Hospital in Cork after a long battle with pulmonary fibrosis – scarring of the lungs. In an interview with The Irish Times in September to promote The Yellow Bittern, a film about his life, he admitted that he was on his “last legs” from the disease.

Liam was the youngest of the four Clancy brothers and Paddy, Bobby and Tom all predeceased him. Tommy Makem died two years ago.

Born in Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary, Liam Clancy emigrated to the United States to join his brothers in 1956. They began their singing careers around the pubs of Greenwich Village where they met a young Bob Dylan who has claimed them as one of his biggest influences.

Together the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem began a transatlantic phenomenon after a break on the coast-to-coast Ed Sullivan Show in 1961 where they filled in for a guest who could not turn up.

They were then offered a record deal with Columbia and were hugely successful on both sides of the Atlantic resurrecting Irish songs such as Roddy McCorley, Brennan on the Moor and The Jug of Punch.

Aaron Schroeder, the songwriter behind the Elvis Presley hit “It’s Now or Never” has died.

A publicist for Aaron Schroeder says the 84-year-old died Tuesday. Schroeder had been suffering from a form of Alzheimer’s disease.

Aaron Schroeder was credited with writing 2,000 songs and wrote several hits for Presley, including “Stuck on You”, “Good Luch Charm” and “A Big Hunk O’ Love.” But the biggest song was “It’s Now or Never.”. Other artists who recorded his songs are Roy Orbison, Perry Como and Pat Boone.

Schroeder was more than just Presley’s songwriter. He was also a producer, he was credited with helping the young careers of acts like Jimi Hendrix, Gene Pitney and Barry White, and he wrote the theme song for “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!”.

Del-Fi Records founder Bob Keane, who discovered 50’s rocker Ritchie Valens, has died of renal failure in Los Angeles. Keane was living an assisted care facility in Hollywood, CA he was 87.

Keane founded Del-Fi records in the 1950s and discovered Valans in 1958, when Valens was only 17 years old. Valens recorded the smash hits ‘La Bamba’ ‘Come On Lets Go’ and ‘Donna’ and was the inspiration for the film ‘La Bamba’ starring Lou Diamond Phillips. Valens was tragically killed on February 3rd, 1959 in the same plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper, which inspired the Don MacLean song “The Day The Music Died”.