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Truth Is Out Of Style and Get Down Tonight

xxmikexx

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Twenty years ago I pioneered the business of MIDI cover sequences for computer bands. As a music producer (albeit a strange kind of producer), I hereby declare this, my favorite music video, to be excellent sequenced hip hop ...

 

 

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I've written about music before and no doubt I will do so many times now that we have blogs. This post you are reading now was motivated by an email I sent to a friend an hour ago, telling him about all the interesting versions of Get Down Tonight that are up on YouTube ....

 

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Hi Matt <Matt Lee, a friend who is an Internet DJ>,

 

A riff about Get Down Tonight ...

 

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Original recording synced to a concert video. You can see that they're all having a lot of fun with it. This will have been the long version (7.5 minutes), which they here cut off in the middle of the lengthy horns bridge that everybody edits out ...

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qEyWm3UNK1Y&feature=related

 

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Apparently in concert ...

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YE26BGdzRfw&feature=related

 

To play the strum guitar part non-stop is a killer on the left wrist. (I should know, I play rhythm guitar.) In the original recording they probably punched it in in sections but obviously you can't do that live.

 

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Here's a very nice dance remix. The horn samples start earlier, the vocal begins at 1:07. This cover at least has the decency to run for 5 minutes.

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qddHjPjkj6w&feature=related

 

 

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Here's another concert video, this time with live music, the FULL horns bridge at 1:51 followd by a funk guitar breakdown, followed by the horns part of the outro. (I love horns.) But then they go back into the guitar breakdown again, this time really long, during which the video cuts off. It wouldn't surprise me if this performance had actually run 15 minutes.

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OGRwZ8OeycM&feature=related

 

 

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Here's a strange, creative but vaguely disturbing animated video, synced to the music, starting at 0:32 ...

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ucUTicF8zSk&feature=related

 

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If you're going to do a cover you should either a) cover the original note for note, or b) bring your own radical interpretation to the party, as Shriekback has done here. Be sure not to miss the hip hop breakdown beginning at 2:00 ...

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nZo2fMmXzOo&feature=related

 

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I had never heard of Shriekback before tonight. I found that they did some interesting stuff, like this piece ...

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=svnnUTpCLFc&feature=related

 

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YouTube is a wonderful thing.

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xxmikexx

I'm a huge James Brown fan, have been so since the early 60s when he was recording as "Nat Kendrick and the Swans". I own most of his stuff. However, while listening to the regional jazz station today, KUVO out of Laramie, I heard a JB number that I'd never heard before.

 

He sang "Every Day I Have The Blues" with an honest to goodness full big band behind him. The band arrangement sounded to me as if it must have been written by the guy who wrote all the Frank Sinatra band arrangements. (I'll have to look into that.)

 

Now if I can just remember, I also learned today that there's a KUVO funk show tonight from 11 PM to 1 AM. The time is not a problem -- I'm a night owl. So I think what I'll do is set my desk alarm. Almost certainly I'll be working at that hour, now I won't forget about the show.

 

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You see, I'm also a huge funk fan. Here's the kind of thing I'm into, this one an obscure piece by the Ohio Players, "Funky Worm", this particular rendition done live at a small dancehall somewhere ...

 

 

And here's the original recording

 

Each rendition has its own merits. I have no preference because I love funky keyboard work and this guy is a master.

 

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Since I can't seem to come up with any other renditions of Funky Worm you will have to settle for this interesting live jazz/funk arrangement of "Skin Tight" ...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfjtoNzh7p8&feature=related

 

In this video we come in with the long intro already well underway. Now listen to the bass. Except for the short choruses he plays the same line all the way through, for more than six minutes. This is a complex bass run and I will tell you as a bass player myself that it's really hard to keep from getting hypnotized and messing up the intricate line in a long piece like this.

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xxmikexx

Speaking of bass, here's Larry Grant of Sly And The Family Stone ...

 

 

Someone in this video said that Larry Grant is the inventor of slap bass. Not true. Slap bass goes all the way back to upright string bass and big bands. However, Grant is the inventor of electric slap bass, which is a whole different thing.

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