Drum

Artist: Drum

LP: 12" single

Song: "Bite-It" 
[ listen ]

I had a feeling Buffalo and I were going to get along pretty well, but I had no idea I was going to fall in love. I even bought these t-shirts to prove it. 

Buffalo is so much more my style than what Seattle has become over the past ten years. Buffalo is like a fun night out bar-hopping with The Bangles circa 1983, whereas Seattle has turned into an uppity vanilla-scented candlelight dinner with Swing Out Sister, where you're not allowed to smile at anyone and you have to be home in bed by 11pm. I mean, the prices on menus at restaurants in Buffalo still have decimals on them!  

Don't get me wrong...oh, forget it. Get me wrong. I don't care. The first record store I visited the day after I flew into town was Record Baron, in the north part of Buffalo. It's actually in a Buffalo suburb called Kenmore. The shop was full of great stuff stacked up all over the place, just the way I like it for digging. Dan, the owner, is a super friendly guy who gave me the two-minute tour, then set me loose in the bins, though he did first point out a few gems he knew I'd like. 

I found plenty at Record Baron worth posting, but settled on this 1984 hip-hop single by Drum (I was hoping maybe they were called Dr. Um) in which lead singer Gillespie Kelly performs a Swahili rap taught to him by someone called Mesfin the African. It's a doozey. The record doesn't seem to be particularly rare, but the copy I found has been sealed in plastic for the past 32 years, so it was a treat to break it open and finally drop a needle on it.
 

[ Drum ]
 

[ Record Baron — Kenmore, New York ]

Neneh Cherry

Artist: Neneh Cherry

LP: 7" single

Song: "Buffalo Stance" 
[ listen ]

I'm practicing my Buffalo Stance this weekend to prepare for my visit to New York's biggest rusty city later on this week. There will be record stores. The population of Buffalo was 580,132 in 1950, when it was the 15th largest city in the country. But according to figures from the last census in 2010, only 261,310 people remained. 

More Buffalo trivia: U.S. President William McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo in 1901, when the city's population stood at approximately 352,387. Buffalo's lovely Cazenovia Park, created in 1893, was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed New York City's Central Park, and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco too. I've been instructed to eat here at some point during my stay. Oh, and if you want to know about Neneh Cherry, click here.

[ Neneh Cherry's Buffalo Stance ]

Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five

Artist: Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five

LP: Greatest Messages
Song: "The Message"
[ listen ]

Song: "Freedom" 
[ listen ]

In "The Message," released in 1983, Grandmaster Flash and His Five were Furious about poverty, racial inequality, and the general state of American society. It's regretful (more than regretful—it's incomprehensible!) that we can only report that things are really not much better here 30+ years later. On the bright side, we haven't given up yet. People now carry little cameras with them everywhere they go and are able to record and bring to light via the Internet crimes and injustices that before would have been swept under the rug. The conversation about social inequality and racism now seems to be louder and more direct than it's been in years. 

I have some hope.

My favorite of the "Greatest Messages" included on this LP is the opener, "Freedom," in which Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five envision life as great big party—a party with no VIP section and where everyone's invited. We're all just gonna' be dancing together and having fun, if that's alright with you. Happy MLK Day! 

[ Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five ]

Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew

Artist: Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew

LP: 7" single

Song: "Spirit" 
[ listen ]

Speaking of movie remakes, I hear they're assembling an all-female team of ghost-busters for a reworking of the 1984 classic comedy (I've actually never seen it). Melissa McCarthy, Kritsin Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon have signed up to bust ghosts in the film, set for release in July of 2016. (Go here to listen to an '80s nerd drone on and on about the "Ghostbusters" remake.) Meanwhile, here's a neat single that didn't rank anyplace on the charts, as far as I can tell. It's Doug E. Fresh with his Get Fresh Crew contributing to the 1989 "Ghostbusters" sequel, "Ghostbusters II," which of course I haven't seen either. August may need to be my 'Ghostbusting' month so I'll be all caught up by next summer.

[ Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew ] 

(Get Fresh Crew not pictured)

Redhead Kingpin and the F.B.I.

Artist: Redhead Kingpin and the F.B.I.

LP: 7" single

Song: "Do the Right Thing"

[ listen ]

Along with bandmates Poochie, Wildstyle, Lt. Squeak, Buzz and Bo Roc, read-headed front man David "Redhead" Guppy contributed two LPs to the New Jack Swing movement of the late '80s and early '90s. You can read about Redhead Kingpin and the F.B.I. on Wikipedia here, and if you've never heard of New Jack Swing before (I hadn't, but I'm from Yakima), you can read about that here.

Redhead Kingpin and the F.B.I. on YouTube:
[ "Do the Right Thing" ]