Friday, February 26, 2010

Just added to the stock





This weeks highlights includes some fine soul albums like Exotics, two by Howard Tate, Ann Peebles great LP "Straight from the heart", Collins & Collins, Clarence Reid's seldom seen LP "Nobody but you babe", Lou Ragland's rare mini LP "Love moods", Z.Z. Hill "A Whole lot of soul". At the jazz there's some nice one's like Charlie Parker's Jazzworkshop LP "Bird on 52nd street", Bud Powell trio "Bud" on Roost, a couple original Japanese Blue Note King pressings as Jackie McLean "Tippin the scales" and Grant Green's "Gooden's corner". Several nice soul, funk 45's like Hoctor "Theme from the black belt", Larry Whittington "You can always count on me" plus several Motown 45's. At the European jazz section we added records like the rare Radka Toneff LP "Winter poem", Lars Gullin's live LP and a very clean copy of Monica Zetterlund "Waltz for Debby".

Friday, February 12, 2010

New in stock



Killer stuff added today, a bit like a mini version of our "Big Update Special". Highlights include some great soul/funk like Artistics "Look out" Brunswick LP, UK group Chant's awesome "I've been trying" 45, Melvin Jackson "Funky skull" LP original, Joann Garrett "Just friends" LP.

Some classic Swedish rare groove joints like Doris "Did you give the world some love today", Stardust International and a scarse reggae LP in Dub Judah.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Plenty of Jazz records added today.


Primarily jazz added this week but a few good ones on the other sections as well. Some of the highlights includes INI's hip hop masterpiece "Center of attention" LP, 9th Creation's lovely 45 only "I'm still your friend", Larry Wedgeworth "No more games", Moments "On top" Stang LP, Monica Zetterlund "Waltz for Debby", Art Blakey "The Big beat" etc. Enjoy!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Digging for records


On my hunt for records I've been to countless places and had quite big wealth of experiences, both bad and good. One of my worst came last week when I visited an old customer of mine that wanted to sell his collection. He's living in the countryside in the middle of nowhere. When we were ready with the dealing I set off to my family's country house as it would be closer to get to and it was starting to get really late. When I make a great purchase I often get a bit of a adrenaline rush and high. This plus that the car radio was playing some killer music made me drive a little bit too fast. Just when Smokey Robinson was singing "Ooo baby baby" on the radio I came to a sharp curve that made the car skid off the road and into a huge pile of snow. In the middle of nowhere and with no cell phone working, I started to dig out the car from the snow. After two hours digging I had dug out everything around the car and the majority underneath it, but there was still enough snow under the car so that the front tires were still not connected to the road. I laid alongside the car digging out the snow when the car's front tires crashed down to the road with my left hand under the car and my head just centimeters from it. I still couldn't get the car out, so I walked for half an hour to our country house. The last 700 metres of road is not public, and was completely snowed over. When I reached the house I learned that the water pipes had frozen and thephone was dead. After two hours sitting by the fireplace there was still snow on the floor from me and my clothes were steaming.
I got some killer records anyway that will be added to the website in the nearest weeks, for example Lars Lystedt "Jazz under the midnight sun". A superb title which I always like to have in stock.

Monday, February 1, 2010

DJ Memories

Between 1988 and 2002 I did a lot of DJing, first in my hometown Uppsala and later in Stockholm when I moved there in 1996. I have many great memories from wonderful gigs, feeling like I was in the best place on earth at that moment. However I will not bore you with those but with these instead:

Brantan/Uppsala (1988)

My first DJ gig ever was at a venue called Brantan. People from Eritrea used to rent it for their massive parties. Lots of beer, lovely traditional food with injera and an eclectic musical mix of Bob Marley, Bob Marley and more Bob Marley. I was invited to play by Yared, now organizer of the Uppsala Reggae festival. I was of course quite nervous and it didn't help that I probably was the youngest and definitely the palest person in the house. I started out playing some of my (then) favorite tracks, mostly funk like Bar-Kays "Holy Ghost" etc. The dancefloor was pretty empty and I soon got interrupted by a very upset drunk man who wanted to remove me from the decks. He was extremely aggressive and yelled that I shouldn't play black music for African people. He probably would have succeeded in removing me if Yared hadn't stepped in and saved me. He persuaded the man that I was ok even if I was not so dark. Yared then took over with a Bob Marley track and the dancefloor vibe was back to top again. Several years later I heard from an Eritrean friend that the angry man had been murdered. He was found dead in a club which me and my friends had often used for parties.

Popcorn/ V-Dala Nation in Uppsala (1993)

This was during the acid jazz hype and for a couple of years we played every Wednesday at one of the biggest student venues in Uppsala. It was me, Will-Rock, Magnus from Koop and David Tivemark. We played a mix of hip hop, 70's funk & soul and the new acid jazz hits from the likes of Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai etc. Magnus was the brave one of us and used to drop tunes like the 16 minute long version of Coltrane's "My favorite things" to a full dancefloor, and of course empty it completely. One night DJ'ing the dancefloor started to fill up and I got a request from a boy to play some James Brown. I answered him that I was actually playing a James Brown tune right then (probably "The Payback"). He said ok and two, three tracks later the same guy came back and asked me to play some hip hop. The strange thing was that I was playing Guru's "No time to play" and I asked if he was deaf or just plain stupid.

Rackis Christmas party Uppsalsa (1993 or 1994)

For 8-10 consecutive years I played at a Christmas party that some friends threw. It was the perfect mix of loose people with no inhibitions, cheap or free beer and (as I thought) killer music. My memories are a bit blurred from these nights of mayhem but I remember one party especially. First there was a live gig by Uppsala's only(?) gangsta rap group called Rennan Syndicate. They were a bit like a lesser good Latin Kings but with some brilliant, hardcore lyrics. They got the whole place jumping and chanting "hasch" and after I took over behind the decks the crowd formed a train running around the small club. Later in the evening I remember playing Cornelis Vreeswijk's "En viss sorts samba" when I got interupted by a friend that screamed in my ear that I should pull down his underwear. I turned around and saw that him and three more guys was at the stage half naked pouring beer over each other. I politely pulled down his undies and he was dancing nude for the rest of the evening.

Kalmar Nation, Club Eroteket (1995?)

Around this time retro soul was trendy and this night was labelled as a soul club. I always felt a bit bored playing only one style of music for the whole evening, so after having a good but not fantastic dancefloor with tunes like Vibrations "Shake it up" and Arnold Blair "Trying to get next to you", I played the latin classic "Tema de alma latina" by Bobby Matos (from his "My latin soul" album). The place exploded. I was busy queuing the next track when I got a beer bottle thrown in the back of my head. After hitting my head it fell down on the record I had lined up and broke it in two clean pieces. I calmed down after a while and was happy again.


Toulouse (1997)

I got invited by Etienne de Crecy from Super Discount after I had DJ'd before them at a festival here in Stockholm. I came to a big fancy club with a fantastic sound system, beautiful women and even a lovely garden behind the stage! House producer/DJ Eric Rug was playing before me and the dancefloor was absolutely massive with maybe 800-1000 people dancing. I never felt confident playing with house DJ's because they really play a totally different way and they mix well. I couldn't mix but relied on good tunes. I started with boogie classics like Universal Robot Band, Logg, Linda Taylor etc and it worked pretty ok. I then put on one of the Stockholm sureshots from around that time, Ten City's "That's the way love is" and emptied the whole floor from maybe 500-600 people to none in less than one track. I played one or two tracks to an empty floor and a panic beating in my chest. I then put on Bob Azzam's "Batucada por favor" and the dancefloor was back to 500 dancing people.

TEN CITY THAT'S THE WAY LOVE IS