August 21, 2010

The strange and wonderful terrible! COREY DEVILLE - PARTY REPTILE


I'm doing a collection of posts of some particularly weird and utterly unknown items i've found lately. Most of them are mind boggling in some fashion, and usually the most mind boggling thing about it is how much money people will pay for them. Now, you might say, well 80 or 100 or 120 dollars isnt thaaat much for a record, but really, when you consider how cheap a gigantic amount of other records are, it is quite impressive. I mean a whole host of hard to find 80s and 90s indie rock/rap etc classics that are pretty difficult to find nowadays and still have droves of followers still remain well under 80 bucks. The records in this category stretch the boundaries of what is collectable and why, there's really an art to digging and this is where the real skill lies, determining what has potential value and why. I mean there are unknown items out there that arent worth jack even if its stupid rare, because it doesnt have that certain sound, it doesnt fit into a particular genre or mix of genres or have that certain homemade beauty about it that people are looking for. This is a perfect piece to represent the category, I mean I played this damn thing for atleast 8 people and all of them sumarily rejected it as impossible to sell. I bought it at a record store for a dollar, a hipster record store no less, but they just could not see any potential in it. But when you listen to this, theres just nothing else quite like it. Much like my Jack Adkins post, there is a surreal beauty in its uniqueness, its naivety of its own absurd and awful existence, it has the ingredients for a minimal synth pop tune, but its too electro cheese sounding, and the vocals sound like they were done by the would-be 4th beastie boy that got accidentally left in eastern europe with a crate of whippits. I mean this guy single handedly attempts to start a mid 80s fashion craze equivalent to the crocodile dundee hat of the late 50s. So like I said, there is zero information on this record, I recently sold it on the bay for $110.00, which surprised the hell out of me even I must admit, but I can see some weird French DJs throwing this into a synthpop minimal boogie type set with great success if done right. So anyway, for the first time ever heard since its release in 1985 probably, here is Corey Deville - Party Reptile. "She even has a pair of party-reptile pants!"

August 7, 2010

Texas boogie heat special! STARFIRE LTD , GLASS - Stacked to T , Jefferson Ink

Found some bad ass and very hard to find boogie 12"s this month, all from TX amazingly, I guess a local DJ unloaded his collection at this store I was at, and all of these were in the dollar bin, some people just can't comprehend that local 12s are worth any money, but I'm glad I got there when I did, I can't imagine what else got picked over before I got there considering you dont usually just have 3 12s of this caliber and rarity in a stack, it's usually either just one fluke or about a dozen of em, but I'm lucky to have landed these...
-------------------------------------------------------------------


The Starfire LTD track 'strutt yo stuff' is some whacked out early 80s boogie synth fire too, it's a long boogie funk jam session style track that has quite a few different parts to it, including some vocoder shiz, and a really bad ass 2 minute wobbly synth jam, and has a nice drum break in the middle to ease the transition, definitely made for DJing a phat ass 1981 fort worth ghetto party. I'd love to have a picture of these guys or see them in action. I can just imagine all the jerry curl sweat, damn. This 12 is quite rare, and is usually found in the far inferior 7inch version, which is not nearly as valuable or good but itself is quite hard to find, I'm not sure if starfire ltd has any connection to the Oklahoma band by name of Starfire, whose albums are mostly from the late 70s. Not a whole lot of fort worth boogie 12s out there, so this was quite a special treat for me when I found it. Price is about $200-300. Also the B side, 'Dancin Freak' is pretty good too.

strutt yo stuff (download at badongo.com)
dancin freak (download at badongo.com)

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I really like this Glass track, I've never seen this one anywhere, it's worth about $150-200. The Glass is more known for the LP on HCRC, another Houston label, which is about a 50-80 dollar record, it has the 'whats your name' track on it, and they did have one pretty popular 12 on that same label called ' bedrock' that I don't really like but it is an electro synth classic of sorts., I can't help but think this could have been even more bad ass if they would have used the opening bars more and kept it minimal like at the beginning, at the very end is a crazy fuzzed out guitar solo that isnt bad really, but it'd be better with a synth jam instead, but all that aside, when I first dropped the needle on this one I was flippin out, and I still am.



-------------------------------------------------------------------

Another Bad ass jam from Houston from the cult electro boogie band Jefferson Ink. J.I. had about 4 releases on Houston International that range from straight up TX electro rap to more danceable synth boogie. They're a great crew and I'm glad to have finally found one of their records. Usually about $100-200 record. Not as rare as the other 2 but still quite hard to find, and there's usually more people looking for it.