A dam funky group mostly from Los Angeles .....Charles Wright, the singer, originally came from Mississippi. The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band came together in the mid-'60s and released nine albums between 1967 and 1975. With a stripped-down but inescapably hard and heavy groove sound, the eight-man crew developed a huge local following in the 60s LA Funk scene and were championed by celebrities like Bill Cosby. Their biggest hit came with "Express Yourself," the inspirational title track off their fourth album, which Dr. Dre would rework almost 20 years later into N.W.A.'s single of the same name.
The group broke up in the mid-'70s, but reunited in 1998 for an all new LP called "Going To The Party".
Herman Kelly & Life were a short-lived funk group in the `70`s who had releases on the Miami based labels TK Disco and Electric Cat. In 1978 they released a track called "Dance To The Drummer's Beat" From his album "Percussion Explosion"
It is probably after the track "Apache" by Incredible Bongo Band, one of the most sampled drum tunes of all time, mainly by the hip hop community, including artists; 2 Live Crew "Megamixx", DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince " Live at Union Square" & "Magnificent Jazzy Jeff", NWA "Dopeman", Brownstone "Lets Get It Started", Rodney O & Joe Cooley "Yeah Boy", Richie Rich "(My DJ) Pump it Up", 2 Hyped Bros "A Dog "Doo Doo Brown".
It has also appeared on the breakbeat compilations "Ultimate Breaks and Beats"
Tracklisting:
A1. Dance To The Drummer's Beat (5:09)
A2. Time After Time (4:38)
A3. A Refreshing Love (6:40)
B1. Who's The Funky D.J. ? (8:34)
B2. Share Your Love (3:30)
B3. Do The Handbone (3:40)
People think that a banking or stock market collapse must be bad for everybody, but it`s not. If you know a stock collapse is coming (because you are going to cause it!!) then you sell at the highest price, crash the market, and buy back at a few pence on the pound. In this way, those who cause the crash can end up with vastly more stock, and thus financial power, than they had before the ‘crisis’ and they pay comparatively little to secure it. The certain influential bankers have famously, or infamously, used this technique endless times and they are doing so again today.
The thing to remember about banks, as with the business and financial world in general, is that there may be many names above the doors, but there are far fewer ultimate owners and manipulators. If you go high enough, at least most of them are called the same family names. So when public and media commentators talk about a terrible time for the banking industry they miss the point. Of course, it is bad for those who lose their savings, can`t buy a home,or lose their jobs. But that, to those without access to empathy like the Banking dynasty, couldn`t give a toss about you.
The Banking families, and their associated network of cronies, own the system – The Game - and however that system may re-adjust and re-structure itself from time to time The Game is still owned by them.
For example, Merrill Lynch may have failed, but it has been absorbed by the Bank of America, a bank owned by one banking family, if you follow the trail of hidden ownership, and so The Game just goes on under different, and fewer Banking family names. Lehman Brothers may have collapsed, but the vultures, like Barclays in Britain, are circling the corpse to seize the most profitable assets and the Game goes on. If you "Own The Game", you always win because you make the rules under which it is played.
Milton Bland AKA Monk Higgins, was a multi-talented saxman who had a big hit with this track in 1972, lifted from his "Heavyweight" LP on United Artists Records.
It was while he was arranging and producing for acts on UA that he released "Gotta Be Funky", it has become heavily sampled, not surprisingly with that drum beat.
It was included on the 2004 Blue Note Trip compilation "Goin' Down Gettin' Up".
Its a very long time to accurately remember the exact details of the day's activities, but it was on Saturday 13th August 1977.
We`d seen a Socialist Workers Party poster up at Camden Lock the week before advertising an Anti-National Front demo in Lewisham, with the slogan "They Shall Not Pass" reminiscent of the Anti-Fascists that stopped Sir Oswald Mosley`s British Union of Fascists walking the streets through the East End of London (Cable Street) in 1936...We thought, lets check this out!!
Previously the NF had gained 120,000 votes at local elections across London and running battles at NF rallies around the country would culminate in one of the most bellicose riots the capital has ever seen. This flexing of fascist muscle threw down a gauntlet to a number of groups that rarely encountered each other, a politicised student movement grew on the events in Chile and Vietnam, militant trade unionism, (at the same time supporting a miners' strike) and increasingly self-aware asian and black youth, facing down the police and propelled by the militant tunes of Reggae and the events taking shape in South Africa.
In the morning we jumped the tube from Gt. Portland Street to London Bridge and then on to New Cross...It was evident from the atmosphere on the trains that this day was not going to pass off peacefully. We really hadn`t much of a clue about who was who, as the train chugged into New Cross Station.
On the platform, scuffles broke out between people who looked like my ex-teachers at school and what looked like ex-military types to me...Once out on the streets of Lewisham the air was thick with emotion. We set off making our way down to the Clock Tower on Lewisham High Street. When we reached, the crowd was thousands strong, Trade unionists, students, local black and asian youth, a myriad of anti-racists determined to physically confront the Nazis and stop their provocative march through a predominantly Afro-Caribbean area of South-East London..
The NF march seemed to take for ever to reach, so the 3 of us decided to walk back up and take a closer look, about half way, we could see the union jack flags the fascists had adopted as their own fluttering in the breeze with Plod amassed around them 3 deep. It was then a red flare came shooting out from the sidewalk whizzing into the flags and those holding them..it seemed to be the catalyst, bottles and bricks rained down from the heavens...Stickmen in their snakeskin loafers, turbaned teenagers and scruffy students all getting in on the act...Mickey was the first, " have some of that"...more in frustration at Plod for his own experiences, it was payback time......It must have been a good 15 minutes of us enjoying ourselves lobbing any debris we could find lying around into the Nazi scum.....Soon after Plod got themselves tooled up with riot shields and batons - the first time such equipment was used on the mainland. The waves of police baton charges were cracking head indiscriminately.
It was a good idea of Timmy`s, " lets get back to the clock tower"...and off we went, to find the place more rammed than before... Well as history acknowledges, the Nazi`s march never reached the High Street.....The severity of the counter demo had the desired effect and Plod had had enuff , they stopped the fascists in their tracks and marched them back to New Cross station to be loaded on trains out of there.
The day had been a victory for black and white, standing together to paralyse the National Front who never really recovered after this event. In November of that year the Anti-Nazi League was formed and forged what was to become a crucial link with Rock Against Racism (RAR), a group of musicians, photographers and artists allied with the punk scene. Who organised bands with reggae artists in unprecedented mixed events....The RAR gigs culminated in two huge anti-Nazi carnivals and marches, one at Victoria Park, East London, in April `78 and another in Brockwell Park, Sarf London, in September that same year. The carnivals each attracted over 80,000 people to demonstrate their opposition to the NF and hear acts such as The Clash, Tom Robinson, Steel Pulse and X-Ray Spex.
They catapulted the ANL into national consciousness.
A little series I will indulge in occasionally for your listening pleasure.
First up is this track from 1978 on Westbound Records, a little bit on the Disco side of the Funk spectrum, with a very tight production and great break to keep ya moving......taken from his "A Sweet Taste Of Sin" album.
