The Bongolian is Nasser Bouzida, and his funk emanates from the UK. As way of introduction for his song “The Riviera Affair” from Bongos For Beatniks (2011), here is an imaginary interview with The Bongolian’s theoretical dog. This is, of course, a translation of a conversation had completely with our eyebrows:
Me: Dog, do you get tired of listening to bongos all the time?
Dog: One would surmise.
Me: Well stated. Right on. What kind of bath schedule are you on? Your fur looks great.
Dog: Are you trying to say something? Your eyebrow is terrible.
Me: I’m surprised! … Did you get that, at least?
Dog: Yes. Let’s stop there. I’m looking away.
…
The Bongolian is also a key component of Big Boss Man, a funk band that is donkey-strong, and can be found elsewheres on this site.
I am both proud, and vigorously grooving to be the one bringing this song to you. Now go on, getcha some, and enjoy.
Song: The Riviera Affair Artist: The Bongolian Album: Bongos For Beatniks Label: BLOW UP RECORDS Buy from: Amazon | iTunes Listen: MOG | Spotify | YouTube
I had just stepped out of the office to get normal when she (echo echo echo, wavy lines) walked by, doing that bipedal locomotion thing, with accents and flourishes in the hips… achieving actual sublimation. That’s when a solid turns directly into a gas.
Sublimate, parallel, and prismatic, as well, were the refractions of the colorations in her sight-balls when hers met mine. I was smote. And in the 14 heartbeats in which I knew her, like a timeless, smote mote did we drift, hand-in-hand on the eternal winds of worlds that could never be.
So it was, that as she walked away, I whistled loudly in her direction and shouted “Datass go BOOM!”
Yet she cast back not even the shadow of a glance from another world, and vaporized before my very sight-balls, forevermore.
~
This writing was inspired by “Thema” by Sunna Gunnlaugs, from Long Pair Bond (2011). Sunna, Icelandic jazz pianist, got Long Pair Bond’s production funded on Kickstarter, which kicks a.
Gunnlaugs is Icelandic for “Gunn laugs.” Her band mates on Long Pair Bond are Þorgrímur Jónsson on bass and Scott McLemore, drums.
I had to buy an Icelandic keyboard on eBay to type that bassist’s name. For you.
So enjoy.
Song: Thema Artist: Sunna Gunnlaugs Album: Long Pair Bond Label: Sunny Sky Records Buy from: Amazon | iTunes Listen: MOG | Rdio Watch: YouTube
Find a quiet spot without any obvious distractions, free of precariously positioned buckets of water, and for the love of chakra, no bubblewrap.
Clear your mind. Focus on your breathing and picture a single image in your mind, like the flame of a candle but not the itch on your nose, or the fact that little bugs live in your eyelashes. Block that out.
No, you can’t force your mind to clarity. You must let serenity happen to you. It is okay for other thoughts to come up. Be aware of those thoughts and then let them pass. Feel yourself letting thoughts into your awareness and out of your awareness. Yes, it’s easy to get caught up in an infinity loop with the whole thinking about what you’re thinking about thing. But let that pass, too. Then let letting things pass pass, and so on, thereby creating an infinity loop of letting go to cancel out the infinity loop of awareness.
Be super careful not to mess it up at this point. If you were to think about whether you paid your light bill or a random stupid thing you said a week ago to somebody, you would totally lose the enlightenment value of the whole shebang and you might as well go eat an animal as sit here and waste time.
Anyway, when you’re floating on the current of being in a bubble of serene oneness with creation, picture something really important to you like your favorite finger food, or the spot where you like to sit on the couch. You know, the stuff that matters. It’ll feel like banging an emotional prayer gong in the middle of your soul.
Yet you’re still at peace and clear-minded and all at this point, and when you’re really like “whoa” on a level you’ve never been so like “whoa” before, then you know you just totally meditated.
You could also spend some minutes of your transit down the current of being listening to “Ain’t He Heavy, He’s My Brother” by Wagon Christ, theistic alias for Luke Vibert, a British artist/producer who gots chops like farmers.
Be quiet, baby girl. Put your head on the table beside your drink. Now step away from them both.
Uncle Funk just dropped the needle in the cut.
It’s “Hush” by Nostalgia 77, moniker of producer Benedic Lamdin. Hush is good advice.
The song is from The Sleepwalking Society (2011). (See an actual music critic at work here.)
Now quiet your self, baby girl, and concentrate on increasing bloodflow to your amygdala. That’s in your brain somewhere in the middle near the bottom, I think. Concentrate on increasing bloodflow in that general area. That should be good. No electrified probes allowed for this exercise, either. This needs to be natural brain stimulation.
That’s it, girl. I can tell you gone and relaxed yo’ self.
Now, be still and don’t move, because I’m going to insert this tracking device just behind your left ear. It’ll pinch just a bit, but I’m not letting you get away.
Quit trying to resist, and listen to the music. Just enjoy it. Then come back and see me for more.
I got a new bumper sticker for my car. Here’s a picture.
I’ve noticed the sticker is causing me to try to look happy when I’m driving, because I think it would suck if someone saw my ridiculous bumper sticker and drove past, and looked to see I was scowling. No, I don’t want that.
I made just a handful of the stickers through a popular online custom print company whose name may or may not sound a lot like “VistaPimp.” I’ll withhold the identity of the company as bargaining collateral for when they come asking for rights to my brainproducts.
If anyone wants one of these works of bumper art, simply email an emotionally balanced haiku on the subject of your choice to jay@[the domain name on the pictured bumper sticker]. I will mail you one if your haiku has a nice smell to it, and if I have any stickers left.
Segue.
And here’s a song to grow the multi-cultural synaptic pathways connected to your earholes. It’s a band out of Piacenza, Italy, called Link Quartet, but the lyrics are in French. See what you think of the French funk. The album, 4 (2011) is definitely worth a listen. It’s mostly instrumental and diverse like the universe.
It’s okay if you giggle, or even wiggle, when you listen to this track.
Enjoi.
Song: Je Réve Dans Mon Réve Artist: Link Quartet Album: 4 Label: Hammondbeat Buy from: Amazon | iTunes Listen: MOG | Spotify
The Wood Brothers, Chris and Oliver, have provided you with a seriously fine playlist so far. They’re on tour now, and they are excellent live. In fact, I will spit a beverage out of my face if you tell me you didn’t enjoy their live show whilst I am in the act of drinking a beverage.
Chris Wood sings more prominently on quite a few tracks on their fourth studio album, Smoke Ring Halo (2011), and that’s a good thing for a lot of young swooners out there. Sniff out “The Shore” if you wanna hear C-Dawg croon.
This one is a classic about love and appetite, “Shoofly Pie.” Enjoy.
Captain Planet is a New York-based DJ/Producer/Smartass who cranks out some bumping jango sauce. See album Cookin’ Gumbo (2011).
Captain Planet is tongue-in-cheekily named after a dookey-awful cartoon series co-created by Ted Turner and Al Gore’s third chakra back in the early 1990’s.
Now you know the important facts. Listen to the vibrations caused by the Captain, and enjoy.
Temptations + Afro beat + Pharoah Sanders = Michael Kiwanuka’s “Tell Me a Tale.” And that’s just an algorithm for the one tune.
Hang on… equations cannot normally describe music with any degree of accuracy. Equations don’t even have eyebrows.
But Michael Kiwanuka, a contemporary British musician, is such a stitch job of disparate influences that it’s hard not to try to break down his sound to its denominators. And then again, who isn’t a stitch job these days? In modern society, we can pick and choose who we are, more than ever before, as if the world is but an á la carte menu of identity.
Got a notion? You can find a thousand people who will sing the same song.
So be careful what songs you start to sing. This is the freedom fundamentalists are afraid of.
Sorry, I was just introducing some music, and got preachy.
Enjoy it. Amen.
Song: Tell Me a Tale Artist: Michael Kiwanuka Album: Tell Me A Tale Ep Isle Of Wight Sessions Label: Interscope Buy from: Amazon | iTunes Listen: MOG | Spotify Watch: YouTube
Lack of Afro is Adam Gibbons, a “multi-instrumentalist and producer” according to his own site. Musical guests from an impressive network of artists sit in with him and he weaves a custom musical backdrop for each. Adam is one of those guys who can nail 11 different styles in 11 tracks. See album: This Time (2011).
Lack of Afro. White dude who pulls off soul and rap with swagger… and soft, silky hair.
Check out “The Importance of Elsewhere” just because you can. Enjoy it because you have to.
Song: The Importance of Elsewhere Artist: Lack of Afro Album: This Time Label: Freestyle Records Buy from: Amazon | iTunes Listen: MOG Watch: YouTube
RT @primawesome: Let's have a race. You try to get an appointment with a licensed mental health professional and I'll try to get a gun. Rea… 5 years ago
The Bongolian is Nasser Bouzida, and his funk emanates from the UK. As way of introduction for his song “The Riviera Affair” from Bongos For Beatniks (2011), here is an imaginary interview with The Bongolian’s theoretical dog. This is, of course, a translation of a conversation had completely with our eyebrows:
How to (totally) meditate:
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