Sugar Bear - I Love You So 7" (Ovide 1969) *Re-Post

Hello friends, I noticed that for some reason my Sugar Bear Post from ages ago was missing, I don't remember why I took that down or if it was deleted by accident or what. Anyway, I'll probably never know what happened to the post but I can remedy the situation pretty easily....

This is the sinlge most impressive and expensive find I ever came up with. And it was located in a box of 99 cent 7"s that were very dirty, but mostly in good shape still, located at a mainstream record store that I go to pretty frequently. The box was mind blowing, to put it mildly. In it was the legendary Austin soul 7" 'Trace of Smoke', and also the Alabama modern soul legend Sonic Explosion. I picked both of those out along with a few others and was verging on the point of crapping my pants, but at the very end of the box I noticed a beat up looking 7" by Sugar Bear, and saw on the side of the label "with the TSU Toronadoes" and I thought, oh my, a 45 with the Toronadoes that i've never heard of? On the Archie bell and the drells label? that is a DJ promo? Produced by Skipper Lee Frazier? I knew I was on to something big but the other 2 records which I knew already took precedence in my mind. When I got home I looked on the net, in the books, and asked around, and I couldn't get one sliver of information on it, aside from info about Skipper Lee, the producer, and Ovide the label, and even who Sugar Bear himself was, a local Houston soul cat that occasionally opened for Archie Bell around town. He recorded two 45s to my knowledge, both very small houston affairs, one of which is this promotional 45 cut in a tiny tiny amount to give to radio stations to get airplay in order to get money for more presses and more studio time, obviously it didnt work out, and thats a really sad thing, because this guy had massive talent and combined with he TSU Toronadoes, I enjoy just as much as Archie Bell, who had enormous success in Texas and nationally to some extent as well. Also, there is another Sugar Bear soul artist, who released a collectible 12" named Sugar Bear Johnson, but I don't think these are the same people. This 45 still hasn't popped up anywhere since I sold it off a couple years ago, its a true ghost status 45. Anyway, it was a 892.00 auction for a vg--/G+ copy, though it sounded much better than it looked thankfully. In fact the pressing was so deep that it sounded quite good even, which helped the price quite a bit. No doubt a NM copy would sell for major, major money. Anyway, it is a very rare chance to hear this gem, and no further copies have been surfaced, no comps, nothing. So enjoy.


SIDE A: I Love You So


Side B: I Got What You Been Looking For


*Feel free to click on the divshare links in the sample players to download the songs after listening.

Da Alliance - Maintain / Spanish Fly 12" +++ Baby X Da God-Sun - Game Recognize Game 12"

Here are the other 2 indie rap 12"s I found in my box of sealed beyonce records, how 3 obscenely rare indie rap 12"s were stuck in this box of 50 identical sealed beyonce records is beyond me, but I'm glad my intuition told me to have a look at the colors that didnt match, because I found Hustlers By Choice, a gem of a Texas indie rap record, and believe me, there are very few progressive early 90s Texas indie rap 12"s, 90% sound like a bad Ghetto Boys ripoff, the other 10% are electro raps about not doing crack cocaine, a handful of love jams, and then you have your remaining chosen few, now don't get me wrong, once you pass 1992-93 there are a number of good Texas indie 12"s coming out, but anyway, beside the HBC record I also found a New York 12" by Da Alliance, and another by the zero-google-results 'Baby X Da God-Sun', I don't know if thats a really great mc name or one of the worst i've ever heard, but anyway, these other 2 12"s, though not of the glorious heights of HBC in price, are still very good and post worthy. So here they are. Btw, 'maintain' is the track you want on this 12, the flip side is pretty frightening female cholo rap.

Da Alliance - Maintain / Spanish Fly 12" with instrumentals (no label 1997)

Baby X Da God-Sun - Game Recognize Game / Instrumental 12" (1997 no label)

Hustlers By Choice - Can I Swing To This EP 12"

Here we have the mega find of the month for me, and with it came a couple other hiphop 12"s of note, I havent found a good random rap cache in a very very long time...

This is a very sought after Texas hip-hop 12" from Houston around 1992. Produced by DJ Pryme and MCed by Tee Money. I don't know how many copies were pressed but I know its very few, I'd guess 500, of which a lot were probably given to radio stations and subsequently lost forever. There was only one instance of this record being found and sold before, and it was a guy in Germany and he made a cool 820 dollars on a NM copy. This copy I found in a crate of Beyonce records in Temple, Texas was sadly a VG+ copy with some cosmetic problems but it sounds really great, especially for being a rather quiet recording/pressing to begin with. I wish I knew more about these guys, there is a discogs entry now, zero 'have it', if youre familiar with discogs. The music consists of 3 tracks, the third being the 'obligatory love jam' that I never quite understand why or how it fits on such a record but I do enjoy them unlike most people. The two tracks are very well produced, nice beats with a lot of layer and detail, crusty sound production that gives it a very bronx new york vibe to me, but the vocals are a real surprise, espeiclaly coming from Texas, it has a kind of Bay Area back pack rap sound, at first its kind of jarring but I got to enjoy it actually, very unique. The first track is about a crooked record executive that acts like he is your best bud while trying to sign away your life to the company, thus the title Mr. Buddy. The next track is just kind of a 1992 anthem style track with a scratched vocal chorus of "can iii swing to this, etc." Overall a very enjoyable EP, not the strongest lyricism I admit, but that 1992 vibe is in full effect.

Hustlers By Choice - Can I Swing To This EP (Houston, TX 1992) Full EP .rar

Jonathan Hutchison - Love is Pouring Down (Cassette 1983)

Here we have an unknown cassette of 80s Lo-fi Christian folk/pop from California that has some nice moments on it, I really like the production of the tape, very basement 4 track earnestness, admittedly the lyrics could be a lot darker and more personal, and I wish there were more songs with the guitar-rhodes-bongos setup, but there's still more than enough to hold my attention, and the lyrics are pretty catchy actually they're just not my preferred style. But the fact that this tape is obscenely rare and that I think the Xian fans of my blog will enjoy it, is reason enough for me to post it. Also, for once, the cover artwork of the tape looks exactly like it sounds.

Have a listen to a sampling of the better tracks featured in this clip, there are 5 tracks here and each is about a minute long:



LINK TO THE FULL ALBUM

Jim Tucker, David Dale, and The Jim Schmidt Enigma (Revised...)

So there is an LP by Jim Schmidt that is certainly one of the most desirable items in the christian soft rock modern soul smooth pop crossover genre, and I have inexplicably found it not once but twice, and it isn't something you should find often at 250 dollars a pop, so I became pretty familiar with it of course, and with the song "Serious" which Jim wrote, then one day I'm looking through the dollar bins and I see a sealed record by David Dale, Lubbock Texas christian soft rock stuff, I buy it not thinking much of it, then I put it on, and I see that he has covered the very obscure Jim Schmidt song 'serious,' weird I think, but it does have that Michael Mcdonald sound so I know it's gonna be big. This is an unknown record previously mind you, so then a couple months pass and I'm diggin through the dollar bins again and I see Jim Tucker, hmmm, looks like christian soft rock to me I think, so i buy it. I then put it on at home and what do you know, ANOTHER cover of 'serious' by Jim Schmidt! A third unknown christian pop obscurity covering an already obscenely rare record. So now I'm wondering, how many more of these instant gold unknown christian pop LPs that cover 'serious' are out there? Is reality somehow manifesting itself in a loop? popping out these records for me to find like some endless LP forever skipping on a bad groove? a cosmic joke? a sign from God? okay, a little overboard, I know, but it really is strange, finding any of these is like a needle in a hay stack, I'm not saying I'm doing some off the charts digging here, if that were the case i'd be finding a box of sealed butcher cover beatles or some shit, this is just utterly bizarre to me. well anyway, I don't have the Jim schmidt recorded in full, I have 4 of the tracks but I think it is available on Itunes so I will throw Jim a bone and not put it up for free, I'm sure he could use the dough, but I will give you some Jim Tucker and David Dale action... (I know I know I only have the sample for David Dale, again, I'm very sorry I don't know how I didnt record it all but thats what I have) I will be posting the full track of the newest find by Jim Tucker, and then maybe the clip of David Dale just to remind you (I posted it before in a splurge about 80s Christian pop... damn I wished I recorded that entire LP.) Have fun, and poo on anyone that doesn't like my TIMOTHY 7"... yacht rock forever. By the way there is a christian boogie group called Omega Sunrise with a track called Destiny that Jim Schmidt covers on this album, another link in the chain of obscure covers doing covers doing covers.....

David Dale:

Jim Tucker:

Memphis State University Jazz Band - On Tour 1970-71 LP

Here we have a return to the older style of posts I normally put up, this is an obscure and really fantastic College jazz band album that I haven't seen any other copies of anywhere, there is a few from the later years around but they aren't nearly as good. I was actually kind of shocked by how low the price was for this when I auctioned it, 30 bucks pretty much, but the breaks/beats college high school band market is pretty weak at the moment. There was a time around 2004-6 when you could sell golden era hiphop LPs that werent even that rare for mad money, houston rap was making waves in JApan, and any record that was unknown and had a break or sample on it was GOLD, especially college and highschool band stuff, my friend sold the lesser Kashmere stage band album for two thousand dollars in 04, friggin unbelievable, but the Euro/Japanese markets were clamoring for anything funky to sample, now all of those aforementioned items have cooled quite a bit, but they remain a staple record collecting genre regardless, in fact the ultra-obscurist 90s hiphop market is doing fantastically well. If you can find a 12" by a group that no one has heard and it sounds even remotely like Wutang, you are in the money. So anyway, back to this record, its really solid all the way through but especially the 2 long tracks on A and B side, I can't remember the names, there are some moments where frenetic fender rhodes keys are dancing over some heavy drum patterns and the horns are just going off, I really was impressed by this for there being very little attention or info toward it. Have a listen to the samples and see what you think, the entirety is linked below.

SAMPLE 1:

SAMPLE 2:

MEMPHIS STATE UNIVERSITY JAZZ BAND LP LINK

Timothy, Bondar and Wise and... Yacht Rock? The next big obscurist scene?

*** Revised comment 10/8/11
Okay, first let me add something to what I splurged out yesterday, the only truely Yacht Rock release here is the first 7" by Timothy, that is pure unknown yacht rockness, and pretty awesome I might add, the Bondar and Wise is too uptempo but otherwise is pretty yachty, the others kinda straddle the new wave/boogie/poprock line so I included it in this post for the hell of it. And one last quip, there is no Yacht Rock collector scene at the moment, it is all a an early 80s smooth Christian pop rock scene, so I'm guessing that Yacht Rock will eventually emerge as a desirable 'hip' collector genre, and records like Timothy will sell for good money, as opposed to being utterly valueless like it is right now... so with that being said I will take you back to the original post...
******
So we all know that christian soft rock/aor/pop/modernsoul/crossover stuff from the late 70s to mid 80s is really hot and the market is very strong, IE Jim schmidt, David Dale, Omega Sunrise, Brown and Jackson, and all the other LPs I've posted about, in fact I just found another one which I'll be posting up soon, but what about all the stuff that is exactly like those aforementioned things but isn't about christian themes and lyrics, what of the smooth poppy 80s rock brilliance of something akin to Toto, Michael Mcdonald, Kenny Loggins, and Hall and Oates but buried and forgotten under decades of obscurity, the lost 7" singles by all the boat shoe wearing, razor cut sporting John Oates that never were. Enter Yacht Rock... At the moment even the most awesome and obscure yacht rock 7"s sell for only ten to 20 dollars, and LPs might go up to the 50 dollar range if truly awesome and obscure, everyone thought the idea of a resurgence in late 90s backpack rap was a ludicrous notion, but there it is, so anyway, I'm just pondering the possibilities here and trying to pry a bit into the future because I recently came across a few unknown yacht rockers that I really enjoyed but a market simply does not exist for them, a sad notion indeed. So here are a couple little diddies I found, theyre utterly obscure but still pretty much worthless in terms of monetary value, but I treasure them nonetheless, I also think an obscure underground 90s lofi tape/lp scene will gain some strength eventually, the kinda leftover synthpop/lofi/experimentalist leftovers, sort of in the vein of the Lizard Water release I posted.
Anyway, here's the stuffs, and it's kinda in order of purity to the genre. The first two items are completely unknown and I think fit nicely, especially Timothy, its just so yacht rocky!




Timothy - Your Love Rolled All Over Me



Bondar and Wise - You and Me




Mark Thompson - Bad One





Peter Hostage - Samples from LP





(I'm not entirely sure this is Yacht Rock, but it kinda straddles that line and era, so it fits with the theme here...)
Roy and Roe - Just Don't Come Back





(Maybe too new wavey I dunno but again it's close, it's in that no man's land...)
Extreme Heat - Lonely (previously of the incredible funk band Steam Heat, I'll post this album soon if you want)

Triffid - Uncovered (extremely sought after 80's hair metal cassette))

Breaking new ground on the blog today with yet another tape for you, this is Triffid - Uncovered, my first Hair Metal post, this actually happens to be one of the most sought after late 80s hair metal tapes out there, and it sells for upwards of $200 easily. I was astonished by how many cassette collectors there are out there, and its a very strong market because there isn't a huge amount of tape dealers and tape diggers out there really, so the occasional collectable tape really comes at a premium. I recently found a cache of rare metal demos, some of which I sold on Ebay recently, including this guy, and overall the auction did very well, I was pretty blown away actually. But back to Triffid... all I know is that they are from New Jersey and they pressed about 500 of these. So anyway, I know it's not exactly of the genre's I normally post up but I definitely think it is deserving of a post. I probably wont keep this link up forever so if you are interested grab it now, and the file is just an MP3 of the entire A and B side uncut, I'm sorry about the format but I got lazy, use Audacity to chop it up if needed.

Triffid - Uncovered (uncut 192kbps MP3 of both sides.)