R.I.P. Johnny Angel

My life's passion right now is the donut hunt; collecting samples that Dilla used during the course of his life - focusing on, but not being limited to the DONUTS album. I've had the 2 songs that he flipped from UK rock group 10cc, but not in "donut" form. I've now got the soundscape for "Waves" in Donut Box-ready format and I'm super excited about it. I found this picture-sleeve pressing online and when I came home today, it was sitting, waiting for me. What joy!

I must say, I'd hit some roadblocks in my donut hunt but as it stands right now, I'm actually faring quite well. I've got somewhere between 15-20 donuts on 45 with some great leads on more. And I'm expecting Motherlode's "When I Die" any day now.

I've come across so many records in the last year, but I will say this. The fine people at Blue Meanie in Dallas, TX seem to take great care of their records. The plastic and paper sleeves, as well as the record itself are in amazing condition. The significance of this? However subtle it may be, a clean record gives a cleaner sound than a dirty record. This is by far, the cleanest used record I've ever seen. It's so clean it's cleaning other parts of my apartment right now. Just playing it reorganizes my books and junk mail. I think the bathroom is sparkling more than usual too.

Although "Waves" is not my favorite Donut, "Johnny Don't Do It" is a dope cut, for real. And Dilla chopped the hell out of it. Seriously. He spiked 10cc's punch on this one. "Johnny Don't Do It" can be found on just about ALLLLLLLLLL of the group's greatest hits releases, so if you want an easy find, there you go. If you're looking for a 7" version of the song with picture sleeve, that was printed and distributed in Holland, beleive me... its a tougher find.

Honey Cone - "Want Ads"

Okay... so The Honey Cone were Holland, Dozier and Holland's Mary Jane Girls or Vanity/Apollonia 6. They were a trio from the late-60s early-70s who had some seriously funky pop/soul songs on Hot Wax Records which was was being run at the time by Eddie Holland. People have called them the female answer to The Jackson 5. I don't think its the worst comparison in the world. They had uptempo tracks with emphasis on the rhythm section and guitar parts - chicken grease pre-"chicken grease".

I got hip to them indirectly. I'm the first to admit that I'm not the most seasoned music listener or record buyer, but I'll definately hunt some shit down once I discover it. This is how I came to find Honey Cone. I am a big fan of Googoosh who is this once-ill, now-eh Iranian pop diva who performed dope, pre-revolution funky material in Farsi, English, Italian and more. I found her cover of "Want Ads" and did about 20 seconds of due dilligence before I fell in love with the original. I've gotten some more Honey Cone stuff including "Stick Up" which is a similar upbeat romp through chicken grease guitar and strong r&b backbeat. Super cool stuff. Here's the Googoosh cover for your listening enjoyment:

So anyway, check out Honey Cone and pretty much anything H,D,H did. There is some good information on Honey Cone here, if you're interested. And wikipedia is always a good look. I guess they sunk into the realm of obscurity after being a succesful backing group for some of the more popular motownesque girl groups of the early-mid-70s. Buddah re-released some of the group's more popular songs in the mid-80s as well. History is fun. I'm still hunting down any and all Googoosh vinyl. If you come across it, holler.