Rare Groove ?

[QUINNY]

DD: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: You are so tiresome.
Steely: ditto

Forrrce: If it passed me by, it shows how insignificant it must have been. I'm not saying that in an arrogant way, just stating the obvious. You'd have thought that I, and others like me, would have been a prime target. You were still relatively young and impressionable, I was already old and jaded. Are you so understanding that you've never looked at something from the outside and given it a thumbs down? I think not. To do so would be super human (or even sub human). I think we're all capable of coming to our own conclusions on any subject and we all have our predjudices. In my defence, if I see something where people disappear up their own asses, I normally conclude that it ain't worth knowing. From your account of things, people did disappear up their own asses, or have I mis-read!
Even you sound mightily jaded about the whole subject.

All this crap about rare really, really, bothers me, when it's a well known fact that probably 99% of the population are more comfortable with what they know, be it music, food, car, whatever. We all enjoy the odd new thing, but we all tend to stick to what we know and like, don't we? The 1% who have the need for different things, all the time, are always going to be viewed with suspicion by the masses, aren't they? So, one has to conclude that seeking rare grooves was satisfying something more than just their musical needs. It was possibly more to do with fashion, NOT music and that possibly applies to the founding fathers too. It was just their way of being ultra hip and gaining their 15 minutes (or otherwise) of fame. It was just their way of being different, for the sake of being different or gaining a momentary commercial advantage. Does someone who constantly seeks new records really like music or are they even more jaded than I'm supposed to be? Jeez, can't anyone see how false and manipulative the whole thing probably was?

Sure, it must have been great to hear quality oldies all day long, or was it? If these records were sooooooo f*****g good, how come they were sooooooo unknown.
If only 10%/20% of the soul/funk loving population thought they were brilliant, 'cos they'd been suck(er)ed into the scene, that would still leave 80%/90% who couldn't give a rat's ass. Let's be a little more honest with our assessments, eh? I doubt if many of the records were anything else but bland or mediocre also rans. I'd love you to prove me wrong.

Plus, isn't this another case of some guys re-writing history for their own motives/gain and poo-pooing those who went before, supposedly by paying homage to them? BOLLOCKS! If they really wanted to acknowledge their forefathers/Soul/Funk, then why not drag up all the big hits along with the records that gained the most brownie points for them amongst a very small following??
BULLSHIT BAFFLES BRAINS!
F**K THEIR INSOLENCE!!!!! :evil:

Isn't this more or less your take on the current scene? See any similarities? The basic home truths apply to any/all generations. :) :) :)

Rant over. Normal service will resume shortly.

[DISCODISK]

Originally Posted by QUINNY

If it passed me by, it shows how insignificant it must have been.

quinny 'EVERYTHING' passed you by. what IS tiresome is your contined trashing of every musical form/scene when you were never within a 200 mile radious of any of them,the only good thing about todays rant is that i think youve just about covered all of them now, theres nothing left is there?............

[Leatherman]

Quinny it is pretty obvious to me from your posts that your golden era was the mid/late 70's. I also get the impression that you were always more on the commercial end of things. I think rare groove happened after you had totally lost touch with the underground and therefore you weren't really intersted in it and dismissed it. Also, as you like to think that you have a pretty comprehensive knowledge of 70's soul/funk/disco it makes you a bit insecure to hear that there are loads of good records out there you've never even heard of! Easier to cast it off as a load of hyped up crap eh?

There was actually a lot of good music that came to light out of the RG scene. Of course there was some average tracks (there is in any scene) but a reasonable amount of it was bloody good and probably sounded better than when originally released. Some of the records getting played were songs any collector of soul and funk (like yourself) would already know but were new to younger clubbers - so it wasn't all rejects that didn't make the grade on original release. Along with early house and hip hop (much of which sampled the rare groove tracks) this was a very exiting time for music in London/UK.

[QUINNY]

Leatherman: Actually, I enjoyed the '80s music just as much, if not more than the late '70s.

Insecure? Maybe, but in the past year or so I've acquired loads of 'new' tracks from BITD and only a handful have made my ears prick up. The rest I would have rejected and passed by, or given only a limited number of plays BITD. Apparently, I should have been hip to all of them. :roll:
How come tracks sounded better than when originally released? That's bullshit isn't it, or does it show maybe, that the Rare Groove scene applied lower standards? Are you telling me that records weren't hyped up, either? So who's right, you or Forrrce? Of course, you've never dissed anything in your life, rather than take eons and wads of cash to fully understand it? Oh no, never. 8)

Yes, I did play at the more commercial end of the market judged by hip London standards (is that a crime?), but I still had to play records that had some balls and I had some integrity. As for loosing touch with the underground. I wasn't aware that I was ever in it. Records were released, I played 'em if they were good enough. It was that simple. I'm just very suspicious (maybe overly) of any scene where records gain kudos through their rarity rather than, or as well as, what's actually in the grooves. It's one thing to play records that become rare. It's a totally different thing to go seek 'em out and play them only for that reason. When all is said and done, it's relatively easy to appeal to a limited audience. Someone, somewhere is always going to like almost any record ever made. Just look at today's totally fragmented scene and Northern Soul (Joe 90 theme to name but one, need I say more. Don't beat me up DD, even you've got to see the funny/ironic side of that). :D :D :D

I believe you when you say it was interesting etc, but that was then, this is now and I'm writing with 20/20 hindsight and 20 years more living, learning, understanding and having to put up with jerks, assholes and jobsworths. By age 50, the J's, A's and J's had twisted my mind, so that I'm a grumpy old man now (like most other 50 somethings I know). Not an excuse, just the way it is. :cry:

Instead of worrying about me, why not throw some great examples at me, that I can actually, easily buy into and prove this cumudginly old egalitarian wrong? I'd love to be proved wrong about Rare Groove, really!!

Just a question. Why didn't Rare Groove spread much beyond London? Less than (terribly) exciting records couldn't be one of the reasons, could it? It was an acquired taste, after all?

DD: :roll: :roll: :roll: Do you enjoy misquoting?

[K-Bee]

OMG :o it has happened again!! Another "Q against the world" thread :lol: will the madness ever end??!! :lol:

On this subject:
I think the whole rare groove scene was mainly a UK thing. However I do remember one DJ in particular trying to introduce radio listeners to the whole concept at a local radio station in my area, playing loads of strange stuf i'd never heard before. The concept in itself may be hyped and design to rip people off but nevertheless, I actually learned a lot and was introduced to the likes of roberta giliam and 80s ladies through that radio show.

Funny thing is. That Dj was none other than Carsten Shack who later changed his named to Soulshock and went on to become a major league R&B producer in the US (Tony Braxton, Whitney a.o.)

[efunk_adelic]

Great thread here... I learned a lot about the RARE GROOVE/NORTHERN SOUL scene.. :D

I don't think anybody I know listens to early '70's funk music. Except for me. :D

[Leatherman]

Quinny - You seem to be very caught up on the rare word of the term Rare Groove - it was just a brand name for a 70's funk/soul revival. Like I said before, you would have known 50% of the tracks getting played. I remember cuts like Roy Ayers "Love Will Bring Us Back Together", James Brown "Stone to the Bone", Betty Wright "Clean Up Woman", Reuben Wilson "Got to get your Own" being main stays of the scene. In the 80's before CD re-issues and the internet these tracks were rare to the average Joe. You certainly couldn't go into Our Price and buy them.

Though I'm a bit younger than you, I was quietly confident I had a pretty decent 70's funk collection by the mid 80's - but there was a lot of good stuff getting played that was new to me. Things like Cymande "The Message", Jackson Sisters "I Believe in Miracles", Maceo "Across the Tracks", Lynn Collins "Think", Whole Damn Family "Seven minutes of Funk" - IMHO still all pretty wicked records. I might have known of some of these tracks, but I'd not actually heard them and I certainly hadn't seen a DJ dropping a whole set of this funky stuff to an enthusiastic packed dancefloor. To claim nothing great passed you by, so all this stuff you've never heard of must be sub standard seems a somewhat arrogant attitude.

Re a record sounding better than when it came out. It was because much of the contempory hip hop sampled James Brown-esque 70's funk/rare groove tracks it made some of these songs seem new, fresh and relevant again. Bobby Byrd "I Know you got Soul" sounded great, especially once Eric B sampled it. Maybe not better then when it came out (I didn't hear it then), but better than it would have sounded in 1979.

You just seem to being deliberately cantankerous and spoiling for an argument sometimes.

[QUINNY]

Efunk: No, you've learned nothing about Northern Soul from this thread. There are dozens of Northern Soul sites out there, if you want it straight from the horse's mouth.

I love early '70s funk. It was the first music that I spun in clubs, along with the Soul records of the day (which I wasn't so keen on).

Billy Preston - Outa Space
Lunar Funk - Mr. Penguin
Bohannon - Stop & Go
Midnite Movers - Follow The Wind
Quincy Jones - Money Runner
N.F. Porter - Keep On Keepin On (on Lizard, also a Northern Soul record)
Nino Tempo & 5th Avenue Sax - can't remember title
Johnny Taylor - Who's Makin' Love
Rufus Thomas - Boogie Ain't nothin'/ The Funky Bird
Beginning Of The End - Funky Nassau
James Brown - Loads of tracks
JBs - Ditto, but probably more (Hot Pants Road was the killer)
Bobby Byrd - can't remember titles
Dyke & the Blazers - can't remember titles
African Music Machine - Black Water Gold
Willie Henderson - The Dance Master
Meters - Lotsa tracks
Olympic Runners - Do It Over was the one
Funkadelic - lotsa tracks (didn't understand a lot though)
Cymande - The Message, Bra
Robert Parker - Get- A -Steppin'
Herbie Hancock - Chameleon
Jean Knight - Mr. Big Stuff
early Kool & The Gang 7"s

And lots more I can't remember or were later in the decade. Most of these were from '70 -'73/'74

[Leatherman]

Originally Posted by QUINNY

Efunk: No, you've learned nothing about Northern Soul from this thread. There are dozens of Northern Soul sites out there, if you want it straight from the horse's mouth.

I love early '70s funk. It was the first music that I spun in clubs, along with the Soul records of the day (which I wasn't so keen on).

Billy Preston - Outa Space
Lunar Funk - Mr. Penguin
Bohannon - Stop & Go
Midnite Movers - Follow The Wind
Quincy Jones - Money Runner
N.F. Porter - Keep On Keepin On (on Lizard, also a Northern Soul record)
Nino Tempo & 5th Avenue Sax - can't remember title
Johnny Taylor - Who's Makin' Love
Rufus Thomas - Boogie Ain't nothin'/ The Funky Bird
Beginning Of The End - Funky Nassau
James Brown - Loads of tracks
JBs - Ditto, but probably more (Hot Pants Road was the killer)
Bobby Byrd - can't remember titles
Dyke & the Blazers - can't remember titles
African Music Machine - Black Water Gold
Willie Henderson - The Dance Master
Meters - Lotsa tracks
Olympic Runners - Do It Over was the one
Funkadelic - lotsa tracks (didn't understand a lot though)
Cymande - The Message, Bra
Robert Parker - Get- A -Steppin'
Herbie Hancock - Chameleon
Jean Knight - Mr. Big Stuff
early Kool & The Gang 7"s

And lots more I can't remember or were later in the decade. Most of these were from '70 -'73/'74

If you had played this set in club in the mid/late 80's it would probably be called Rare Groove by many - especially if you wanted to fill the club! I know 80% of these tracks but that doesn't mean the ones I'm not familiar with are certain to be worse than the ones I do. As Forrrce mentioned, RG extended to ealry 80's cuts and soul artists like Curtis Mayfield, Leroy Hutson but for me the real essence of the movment was raw 70's JB style funk

[QUINNY]

Leatherman: I'm not deliberately cantankerous, although I can see why you might think so. I'm just someone who's naturally cautious and suspicious of ulterior motives.

My understanding of Rare Soul is obviously something different to yours. My understanding is that the scene was filled with totally obscure 12" from artists nobody's heard of before or since (many Soul more than Funk or Disco), that never got played even when they were new!
There was a poster here about a year ago who put up reams and reams of these things, but never once explained what they were like, how good they were (except they were all brilliant :roll: ). That sorta pissed me off and soured my apreciation of the genre for good. Yeah, I've tarred every afficionado with the same brush and I know I shouldn't.

Have there been any Rare Groove compilation CDs featuring typical tracks, that might still be available? All my searches throw up no results.

Re my dismissal of tracks I don't know. Yep, I'm probably as guilty as the next in that regard. I realise my knowledge isn't fool proof, but speaking as an ex DJ (not a collector or punter) I'd like to think that we played most of the tracks that were really any good. A collector or punter would always have a much better choice or taste than a DJ. A collector/punter had none of the constraints. You could like whatever you liked and explore whatever you liked to the nth degree. As a DJ I always had a crowd to please. that makes the assessment of a record much more cutting. Can you appreciate the difference and why I'm always gonna be the way I am?

[Forrrce]

Originally Posted by QUINNY

Forrrce: If it passed me by, it shows how insignificant it must have been. I'm not saying that in an arrogant way, just stating the obvious. You'd have thought that I, and others like me, would have been a prime target. You were still relatively young and impressionable, I was already old and jaded.

Quinny, that's the most crass statement you've made in my time on this page. If something passes YOU by, it's insignificant? You loved 'Roadblock', but without rare groove, there would no 'Roadblock'! You should be ashamed - SAW knew what was happening on the street before YOU did. You would have been in your early 30s at the time, am I right? These clowns beat you at your own game - YOU, King of '70s funk. As for me being 'young and impressionable', (therefore a sucker, Quinny???)...not quite so - this 'scene' encompassed the music I was into and wanted to hear.

This is how it was (and I was there) - the pirate soul stations I listened to in the late '70s and early '80s always played oldies.The DJs were largely soul, funk & jazz enthusiasts. There had, in my time, always been popular, older records that a new audience would want - remember around 1980 when 'Expansions', 'Movin'' & 'Dominoes' got issued on 12" for the first time? Years after initial release - they were still popular records with clubbers. People like me who weren't clubbing in the '70s got to hear great records that lived solely in that environment and never made it to daytime radio, thanks to the pirates. The 'rare' element came later - it was all about music at first. When demand grew, so did egos - and that's when it started to get silly. I wasn't interested in owning expensive records, that wasn't my aim. I already knew (and owned) some of the records that people were scrambling for. There were even some indemand goodies in my dad's collection - unlike my peer group, I could truly say that I was listening to the JBs in the '70s. Had you been living in London (or somewhere with a population of under-50s) and knew what was going on, you'd have had a field day - because you would have been able to pontificate all you like about the good old days and dazzle 'impressionable youngsters' with your collection of funk 45s which you bought AND spun to audiences AT THE TIME, as a WORKING DJ. You could have started the buzz on so many titles...'wow, Quinny played "...." - I got to get that record!". Think of the awe and respect you'd have commanded. But for you, this very notion is one to pour scorn upon and trash relentlessy, just because it all reached you too late.

I don't find jousting with you fun anymore, Quinny - you don't seem to like anything or anybody. You pride yourself on being ojectionable and pig-headed and it's infuriating sometimes. You're obviously an intelligent and articulate bloke and you know the art of verbal war - but you're just impossible. I'm not sure if this just sport for you, or if you really are a belligerent and bitter 'old man'. Sport please, Q.

"Forrrce"

[QUINNY]

Forrrce:
Why did you get the wrong end of the stick? I went on to say "it passed me by....you'd have thought I'd have been an obvious target". Not arrogant, but genuinely trying to understand why I never got wrapped up in it. Only crass if you choose to read it in a certain biased/predjudiced way.
No, I wouldn't have wanted to be a DJ Godfather or whatever. I always lived for the next great new record and was never one to 'educate' youngsters. Do you think I spend a lot of time playing all my records and CDs to my daughter? Nope, I've left her to make up her own mind. I could lend her a CD with Indeep on when she says how she likes that track, but I choose not to pollute her mind with my thoughts. Surprised?

As for age.....Hmmmm.....I believe we are more impressionable at a younger age. I wasn't implying that you were suckered, just that you may have been (and not realised it). Aren't we all victims to some degree? I'm looking for the reasons why you liked it, not just that it encompassed all you wanted to know and hear. That tells me nothing really. C'mon Forrrce, show me your human side.

SAW were ahead of me...YES, no argument! so.........what's the point. They? were making funk records almost 10 years previously (JALN Band) and may have made Roadblock anyway.

Thanks for realising that I'm intelligent. Please note: I'm always asking questions of people and looking for answers. The obvious act of a pompous, arrogant, belligerent, pain in the ass.....yeah!! :roll:

[BrunoRepublic]

Originally Posted by QUINNY

There was a poster here about a year ago who put up reams and reams of these things, but never once explained what they were like, how good they were (except they were all brilliant :roll: ).

Are you speaking of the clown who came in here and gleefully posted nothing but long lists of ridiculously obscure '80s tracks, but had absolutely no interest in discussing them, or describing them, or even comparing them to anything else? The fellow who thought that he was doing us all a favour by submitting these utterly meaningless posts? And who then got very upset and stormed off when people began asking what the point of these lists was?

I didn't get it at the time, but in light of this debate, it makes sense now... I take it he was trying to prove his worthyness simply because of the fact that he even knew of these tracks... :roll:

[QUINNY]

Originally Posted by Graham_Start

Are you speaking of the clown who came in here and gleefully posted nothing but long lists of ridiculously obscure '80s tracks, but had absolutely no interest in discussing them, or describing them, or even comparing them to anything else? The fellow who thought that he was doing us all a favour by submitting these utterly meaningless posts? And who then got very upset and stormed off when people began asking what the point of these lists was?

I didn't get it at the time, but in light of this debate, it makes sense now... I take it he was trying to prove his worthyness simply because of the fact that he even knew of these tracks... :roll:

Exactly Graham. I have his name forever etched in my brain as he's a guy who got very abusive and foul mouthed. I obviously drove him to the edge.

[Forrrce]

Originally Posted by QUINNY

Forrrce:
Why did you get the wrong end of the stick? I went on to say "it passed me by....you'd have thought I'd have been an obvious target". Not arrogant, but genuinely trying to understand why I never got wrapped up in it. Only crass
if you choose to read it in a certain biased/predjudiced way.

Why should you have been an obvious target? You were miles away from where it all started, therefore oblivious. Make sense, man.

Originally Posted by QUINNY

No, I wouldn't have wanted to be a DJ Godfather or whatever. I always lived for the next great new record and was never one to 'educate' youngsters. Do you think I spend a lot of time playing all my records and CDs to my
daughter? Nope, I've left her to make up her own mind. I could lend her a CD with Indeep on when she says how she likes that track, but I choose not to pollute her mind with my thoughts. Surprised?

So, what if people came to you for your experience? Would you just f**k them off?

Originally Posted by QUINNY

As for age.....Hmmmm.....I believe we are more impressionable at a younger age. I wasn't implying that you were suckered, just that you may have been (and not realised it). Aren't we all victims to some degree? I'm
looking for the reasons why you liked it, not just that it encompassed all you wanted to know and hear. That tells me nothing really. C'mon Forrrce, show me your human side.

Suckered into liking music I already been buying for years? If by impressionable, you mean receptive, then yes. I was critical sometimes. I went with the flow sometimes. Looking back, I'm sure I would have heard all the records at some point over the next 15 years or so. Because of rare groove, I probably heard them all within two.

Originally Posted by QUINNY

SAW were ahead of me...YES, no argument! so.........what's the point. They? were making funk records almost 10 years previously (JALN Band) and may have made Roadblock anyway.

So what? JALN Band were rubbish. And 'Roadblock' was put out as a phoney bootleg with very little information, to fool 'impressionable' rare groove people - and grown men up and down the country claimed they had the original 1974 7"! I'd already turned my back on the hype by that time and 'saw' right through it immediately. I'm not quite the 'victim' you think I am.

Originally Posted by QUINNY

Thanks for realising that I'm intelligent. Please note: I'm always asking questions of people and looking for answers. The obvious act of a pompous, arrogant, belligerent, pain in the ass.....yeah!! :roll:

You forgot savage, sarcastic and downright dismissive, with a high-handed, condescending manner to boot.
Pipe down, All Seeing Eye Quinny - you think your age and experience make you some sort of unquestionable oracle? Knot sew!