Look at all these rumors...

Did you hear that one about Susan?

Hello there!

First, let me apologize for the long absence.  A few things happened in life (law school graduation, marriage, bar exam, etc.), but now that that is all over I am free to pursue the finer things in life like crafting witty blogposts about inane subject material that four people will read.  Pretty fantastic.

This post came to mind as I was reading a book recently - the first book I've read that was not law-related in over a year, mind you.  That book was The One, by RJ Smith.  It is the newest biography about "Mr. Please, Please, Please" James Brown.  For a review/interview with the author, go here.  I'm not here to review the book, granted it was decent (for me, it was too broad in scope (his entire life) so it left out some things I would have like to have known more about), instead I'm interested in a little footnote of a story that Smith mentions.  And that story involves another favorite of mine:  Bill Withers. 

Before we get to that, though, allow me to set the tone of what we're really talking about here:  Celebrity Gossip.

Not pictured:  journalism

  

Now, celebrity gossip is nothing new.  Americans have loved gossiping about their favorite (or least favorite) celebrities for as long as there have been celebrities (which were created by William Randolph Hearst in 1880, I believe).  We love stories of their love affairs, their break-ups, their triumphs and tragedies, and their communist activities.  What we really love, though, are those stories of celebrities acting crazy.  This is because a) celebrities pretend for a living and thereby live in a world that is not real, and are thus allowed to act in outrageous ways; and b) celebrities are, indeed, crazy people.  We like to hear about how they push the boundaries of decency, of what is acceptable behavior, and of what they can get away with.  It seems their creativity in acts is matched only by their need for attention.  And we, myself included, love to hear about it. 

This post could easily turn into a recitation of crazy celebrity stories, but that's not my bag.  You can go here, here, or here (definitely!) to do that.   But just the same, here's a quick top three of celebrity stories that came to mind when I was thinking about this post:

Gary Busey

is crazy, as you know.  But even his level of insanity can reach drug-fueled lows (highs?) that are as sad as they are unbelievable.  If you haven't heard the story, he once snorted cocaine off his dog's back.  Yep, his dog rolled around in his yayo one day and Gary "MacGyver" Busey did what any successful actor would do:  grab a straw and not waste that blow!

Mötley Crüe 

Left to Right:  Liza Minnelli; Bret Michaels; Captain EO; Sgt. Pepper of  XFL team The Hollywood Glambots

Now, there is no shortage of crazy stories regaling the exploits of these four gentlemen-ambassadors of rock n' roll.  Often involving sex, drugs, and sex, the Crüe was a force to be reckoned with during their hard-living 1980s.  Sure, one of them killed his friend in a car accident and spent a mere thirty days in jail, but look at them and their teased hair, ruffles, and kissy-face makeup.  You can't hate them!
The story that comes to mind here is not the death-life-death-life of Nikki "Lazarus" Sixx, but instead what he and drumming god Tommy Lee cooked up for one of their groupies.  In one of their saddest and least arousing escapades, they persuaded their groupie-du-jour to place a phone call to her mother from a most-unorthodox phone booth.  Details here.

Prince

You know, I'm not even going to try with this one.  Just go here (on why he can't have a camel for his living nativity scene), here (spark-shooting roller skates) or here (declaring the internet to be "over") . . . seriously, Prince is too crazy for me to sum up.

So that brings us back to the top, the one if you will, and to one of my personal faves, "Butane James" - James Brown.

No crazy here, move along.

Back in 1974, Brown agreed to appear at a music festival held in conjunction with the "Rumble in the Jungle" Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire.  Also on that bill were Bill Withers, B.B. King, Celia Cruz, Ray Barretto, and the Fania All-Stars.  The whole thing is documented in Soul Power, a film about the concert released in 2008.  Needless to say, this concert was a pretty big deal (dubbed "the Black Woodstock" by some uncreative journalists):  you've got some hard-hitting (no pun intended) music acts headed to a country that was eager to have them, combined with some hard-hitting (pun intended) heavyweight boxing, and Soul Brother Number One at the top of the bill.

As I was reading about this in The One, though, I read the following sentence regarding James Brown's unwillingness to sit in coach on the plane flight over to Zaire (and thereby balance the weight of the plane, which was weighed down by all of the equipment Brown insisted on bringing with him):

According to [Hugh] Masekela, during a stopover in Madrid, Bill Withers bought a dagger and held it to Brown's throat, suggesting he sit in economy with the rest of the folks.

What?  "bought a dagger and held it to Brown's throat...."  Bill Withers did this?  "Grandma's Hands" Bill Withers?  "Still Bill" Bill Withers?  I have never heard this story before.  Mister "Lean-on-me-when-you've-got-a-heavy-load" threatened to kill The Hardest Working Man in Show Business?  This seems like something that would have made the rounds, right?  Bill Withers is not exactly a gangster with all that "Just the Two of Us" and "Ain't No Sunshine" business.  It's not like he's Sid Vicious.  And RJ Smith says no more about it!  No commentary on whether it was true or not, no mention of how this played out, nothing. 

Stone cold.

And it's not like James Brown is some wuss.  This is a guy that worked over 300 days a year, was incarcerated as a youth (and as an adult), was pretty much always carrying a gun, and would sometimes fire his band not by telling them but rather by leaving them stranded in California while he went back to Augusta - he is not to be messed with.  Just ask his bodyguards.

Stone to the Bone.

So, if it was true that Bill Withers threatened to kill The Godfather, then surely I would be able to corroborate this story somewhere else.  Also, I think I gained a little more respect for Mr. Withers (as I'm sure you just did, too, by reading the above anecdote).

Guys in rugby shirts are known to be a little unhinged.

After looking around the intehnets a bit, I came across a different version of the story.  Leon Gast, director of When We Were Kings (a different documentary about the "Rumble In the Jungle"), told the story in an interview with True/False Film Fest:

The Vanya All Stars [Latin band, subject of Our Latin Thing] played their instruments on that flight [to Zaire] all throughout the 15 or 17 hours. James Brown, BB King and his band were also on that plane. Some people wanted to sleep, and became offended. At a stopover in Madrid, Bill Withers got off, went and bought something threatening looking, like a fake plastic knife or something, came over the intercom and said, “My Latin brothers and sisters, I know you love your music, but if you don’t stop for a minute I’m gonna slit somebody’s throat” while waving that knife around.

Oh.  So that's maybe a little more plausible, right?  This keeps Bill Withers as the smiley-songwriter-guy-who-just-wants-some-sleep and James Brown as the top-billed-showman-supreme who, like his papa, would clearly "Take No Mess."  

Everything in its right place.

However, it does make one wonder where the "Bill Withers threatening JB" version comes from.  I mean, there are definitely some folks in the industry that did not like James - that much is well-known.  That's what happens when you have a history of paying yourself more than your band, assaulting your female singers, and (as mentioned before) firing your band by leaving them stranded somewhere.  But does it serve Still Bill's legacy to make him into a tough guy capable of cutting up JB?  He is currently a music industry recluse, having given up recording and performing sometime in the late 80s, so maybe this just adds to the mystery.  Or, maybe Masekela just remembered it wrong and harbored some ill-will for JB himself, so he told people Bill Withers got him to change his mind?  Who knows.

The point is, I love stories like this.  Whichever version you accept, this gives a lot of insight into the dynamics at play between music industry stars, some more famous than they can handle at times (i.e., James Brown), others just wanting to play music for people and the love of music (i.e., Bill Withers or the Vanya All Stars, for that matter).  We like this because it presents context for history and shows people acting like people - though let's be honest, I don't think I could get away with threatening James Brown's life simply for not sitting in coach.  But then, I didn't write "Use Me," either.

Regardless, it's not like Bill Withers had this tough persona right?  He wasn't hanging around with murderers or anything like that.

Left to Right:  The Greatest of All Time, Still Bill, a convicted murderer. 

Q: How can I make this funkier?

Wow, so it's been almost six months since the last posting. I apologize to the fans, first and foremost. I hope you've stuck with me, and not given up hope (the same hope that you likely gave up for Slash and Axl making music again; the NBA to play a game; or for Dr. Dre to finally release that Detox album).

Please, stop. Just . . . don't.

Life got a little crazy with the third-year law schoolin' and Editor-in-Chiefing and so forth. But, here we are, closing in on exams; instead of working on understanding the nuances of patent litigation or the intersection of the Eleventh Amendment, the Anti-Injunction Act, and federal common law, I bring you a new post. A short and sweet one, but a post nonetheless.

I hope in this post to answer the question posed in the title, "How Can I Make This Funkier?" I think we've all asked that at some point, right? I mean, some people made an entire career out of asking for things to be "funkier," or to be made "funky," in general.

He didn't really have to ask, did he?

As I was listening to some tunes today (on my awesome hi-tech ultra mixtape mixer/maker, the iPod - big ups to Steve J-o-bs, RIP), I was struck by the greatness of a little ditty you might recall from 1997/98: Fiona Apple's "Criminal."


"Peek-a-boo, it's about to get creepy in here." - Fiona Apple, 1997

Sure, you remember it. You saw the video just like I did and were pretty weirded out by it. Maybe you couldn't put your finger on it:

Uh, is this security camera footage?
Why is she so skinny?
Are these the non-porn parts from a late-70s porn?
What's with the reflective cat-eyes?
Is this about heroin?
Why are you in my closet?!
Seriously, is this porn?

The first hit for a Google search of: "criminal porn." Never been so happy to see Charlie Sheen. Thank you, Safe Search: Moderate.

YouTube won't let me embed the video, so you'll have to go here to see the Mark Romanek/Harris Savedis creepy-fest. Regardless of the creepiness and the lingering dirty feeling you had when the video was over, you couldn't deny - that song was awesome! Yeah, it pretty much kicked everybody else's ass on the scene at the time (read: Ma$e and Chumbawamba) with its amazing production (layers, people!), creepy vocals, and [above all] the drums! The production elements and arrangements are courtesy of Jon Brion (don't sleep on him) and Fiona. She might be a total celebrity-kook, but Fiona's got skills. The drums, though, are courtesy of frequent Apple-collaborator and certifiable BAMF, Matt Chamberlain. Just check out that discography if you need any proof.

So, you know the song. Point is, I caught something today I hadn't really appreciated/noticed before. I encourage you to listen to the track with headphones to find it yourself. In fact, here it is:

Yeah, you remember it now. Listen at 0:45-ish, where it goes into the "Don't you tell me to deny it" part before the chorus. It gets a lot funkier there, doesn't it? Why is that? Is it the chord change? Maybe. Is it just the rising tension? Possibly. I think, however, it's something more subtle and unique, and something that has been making songs phantomly funkier (fantomly phunkier?) for years. Answer: 2 hi-hats.


Not to be confused with . . . see what I did there?

It's hard to hear on the YouTube vid, but if you've got the track on mp3 or (gasp!) CD, you can hear the second hi-hat added in the right channel right as that pre-chorus bit starts. It's likely that it's a whole second drum track, overlaid on the first. I don't know exactly the process involved in the recording, but this is what I posit based on what I'm hearing. Chamberlain is playing 16th-notes on the hi-hat here (with a lot of 'e' accents), layering on top of the 8th-note groove of the main verse. Yeah, it's subtle, and it works very well.

How do they make it better when they reach the chorus, though? The whole "What I need . . ." bit? It's extra soulful (for a skinny white girl, anyway), so you need a tambourine. Perfect. The tambourine lays down the same 16th-notes that the second hi-hat is giving us, and it's in both the left and right channels, so we've got three layers of percussion here, pushing us through the chorus. Add to that Fiona's dotted eighth-note rhythms that go across the barline (see the "'cause I'm fee - lin - like - a - cri - min - al" part), and the trippy sounding woodwind patch (or is it a mellotron? calliope, maybe?) that leads us back into Verse 2, and you've got a pretty much perfect first 1/3 of a song. But they're not done. As soon as we get to Verse 2, all those layers drop out and you're back to one drum track, no tambourine, and just the groove.

Damn.


"You're welcome." - Jon Brion and Fiona Apple

And this continues for the rest of the song, eventually culminating in that incredible bridge (2:46 - 3:11) with the brass part ascending through the A-flat 7 chord while the bass part descends, Matt Chamberlain plowing some sextuplets (the only triplet rhythms in the tune) finally releasing the tension, which gets us back to a re-cap of the "What I need . . ." part.

Whew.

So, in sum, I think the root of all this excitement/tension-release/layering can be found in one element: the second hi-hat. To me, the hi-hat is one of the drummer's most powerful tools. When used correctly, it can really add a lot to a production. It keeps time, it can be accented/un-accented to create texture, and it can be opened and closed to create long, tied sounds or short, crisp "barks." A drummer doesn't need more pieces on his kit to spice up his playing, he just needs to be creative with what he's got. Look at ?uestlove, the drummers for James Brown, or that guy from Mute Math. They don't have complicated set-ups, they just work with what they've got.

Pictured: misleading simplicity.

And as far as the hi-hat goes, it takes some chutzpah to go out on a limb with it. You can't just be opening and closing that thing wily-nily. On the contrary, you've got to have style. And if you dare write a song that might layer drums or percussion over the first drum track (and if it's a second hi-hat that's an even taller order), well, you better know what you're doing.

Here are some folks that do know what they're doing:

Soul Searchers, "Ashley's Roachclip"

Go to 3:36. Yeah, you've heard that before. A lot. One hi-hat but it sounds like two (the drummer's touch, no doubt), plus tambourine. Damn.

The Jacksons, "Shake Your Body Down to the Ground"

The layering starts from the jump. It sounds like the toms are being played separately from the hi-hat/snare/bass part. Then, at 0:33 we get to the chorus ("Let's dance / let's shout . . ."), and we get another layer in the left channel: lo and behold! a second hi-hat. You like it.

Tom Petty, "You Got Lucky"

I know what you're thinking, "You're following up a classic break and f'n Michael Jackson with Tom Petty?!" And the answer is yes. This is a perfect example for today's thesis: a second hi-hat, when appropriately scored, makes a tune funkier. Go to 2:41. There it is, the second hi-hat layered on top of the part we've been hearing for the duration of the song. Here, I bet it's either two different sized hi-hats, or one is a drum machine and one is a real hi-hat (given the differences in the sound the hi-hat makes when opened). Stan Lynch goes us one better on sonority, though, and plays the second part to complement the first (by opening the hi-hat on the 'ah' of 1 and the 'and' of 2, leading right into the previous hi-hat part that opens on 3). He creates a dialog between the two. Subtle, and perfect for the song.

So there you have it. A whole post about the power of the hi-hat without one mention of Stewart Copeland (a man so prolific on the hi-hat (apparently) that he was credited with just playing that on Peter Gabriel's, "Big Time"). I think I've made my point, though, that subtlety usually equals funkiness.

Pictured: Stewart Copeland, the model of subtlety.

It's that intangible funkiness that just grabs hold and makes you say, "I love this." And that's the best kind, isn't it?

Sample Example, pt. 2

I'm sure you've all seen this strange, but effective KIA commercial:


Who wouldn't take their sock monkey to a club with them? And a robot doing the robot is just perfectly post-modern.

The music used in that commercial is "How Ya Like Me Now?" by The Heavy. Who is "The Heavy" you ask? I have no idea, but I bet they're British - because British bands use samples of American music to make American-sounding music, right? (see, e.g. EMF, Big Audio Dynamite, Stereo MCs).


Different kind of 'British sampling'.

The reason C-Murder is bringing this to your attention is because of the too, too funky sample used in the song.


...or as they say in Italy, "Tutto funky!"

That sample is, "Let A Woman Be A Woman - Let A Man Be A Man" from 1969 by Dyke and The Blazers.

Let a Woman Be a Woman.mp3

Fantastic, isn't it? I think my favorite part (other than the break), is the dialog:

DYKE: "hey fellas!"
THE BLAZERS: "Yeah!"
DYKE: "Ya'll see anything wrong with Sally's walk?"
THE BLAZERS: "Naw!"
DYKE: "All right then...tell me 'bout it...hah!"

According to the little info available on the intehnets, three guys from Buffalo were in a band called The Blazers that backed up the "before-they-were-riding-on-a-Love-Train" O'Jays (also from Buffalo). Those three (Arlester "Dyke" Christian - bass, Alvester "Pig" Jacobs - guitar, and JV "No Nickname" Hunt - saxophone) were stranded in Phoenix after the O'Jays couldn't afford to get them back to Buffalo. As a result, the three hired an organist, a bassist (so Dyke switched to vocals), a drummer, and another saxophone player. They became Dyke and The Blazers and a made a big impact on the local Phoenix soul scene.


Any band with a guy named "Arlester" and another guy named "Alvester" has to be pretty good...

Dyke and The Blazers were well on their way to being a heavy-hitting soul/funk outfit of the 60s and 70s. Their first record, "Funky Broadway" (the one Wilson "Wicked" Pickett covered and scored a #1 hit with), is often thought to be the first time the word "funk" was used as the title to a record. From this, Dyke was makin' bank (since he was the writer), while his band was making about $100 a show. The rest of The Blazers eventually quit on Dyke, but it didn't matter because he started working with the guys that would become the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band (you know them from "Express Yourself")...and got even funkier.

The reason you may not have heard of Dyke and The Blazers by name, though, and the reason they didn't get famous, was because Dyke was shot and killed in an altercation in 1971, just a few short years after he got the band going in the right direction. A tragic end to a short climb. I personally think they would have been huge, since Dyke sounded a lot like Otis Redding (another tragic story of a life cut too short, too soon), and the band was as good as The JBs and Booker T. & the MGs over at Stax.

What you hear in "Let A Woman Be A Woman" are those Watts 103rd St. guys. In particular, you hear the funkiness of James Gadson, a sorely underrated, yet supremely funky drummer.


James Gadson - with a wig like that...this guy means business.

James Gadson went on to be the drummer for Bill Withers, played on "Dancin' Machine", "I Will Survive", "Love Hangover", and countless other amazing funky soul tracks. And this guy is STILL working today!

Since we're talking about the greatness and obscurity of Dyke and The Blazers, allow me to share a couple other great tracks:

The Wobble.mp3 - This tune is just a great slice of funk. According to what I can find, this may be Dyke's third drummer, Wardell "Baby Wayne" Peterson, coming after James Gadson.

Runaway People.mp3 - This one is about, as the title indicates, people that runaway. Not sure if this was a big problem in the late 60s, but it was on Dyke's mind. My favorite part is probably the break, which was sampled here by Mr. Tracy Marrow (doing business as Ice-T) on "Microphone Contract" from his 1991 classic, "OG - Original Gangster":


You won't find a better use of the phrase, "You better be a good bullet-ducker".

So, in short, check out these tracks, in fact, if you Right-Click them, you can save them (FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY). Just doing my part to share great music with the masses.
I would also recommend picking up "So Sharp!", a collection of their hits.



Until next time...

Cover Me 2

Just a quick one today.

Here's something I found over at one my favorite audio blogs, The Funky 16 Corners.



Ray Charles, covering Livin' For the City.

Now, like I said in that post about Stevie Wonder covering the Beatles...it's a little pointless to cover someone as great as Steven Wonderland.

Unless you're Ray Charles, and without you, there really wouldn't be any American Soul music. So, with that in mind, go on, Brother Ray. Do your thang.
Ray Charles, "Livin' For The City"

I particularly like the preaching portion, but the background vocals aren't too shabby either, right?

Hopefully you'll enjoy it, too. And in case you hadn't heard the original (and shame on you if that is the case...):


How 'bout that sweet vest on the drummer!

-C Murder.

Free cover tonight!

Ok, so that's a cheap trick to get you to read this new post that has nothing to do with paying/not paying $5 to get into a bar that is too crowded/loud to have fun/enough drinks in. With it being St. Patrick's Day, though, I figured there would be some expectation for pub-related titles.

This post, however, is about covers, though. Covers of the musical variety, and covers of a musical giant, no less. As I was listening to the iTunes recently, I think what has become my favorite cover song of the moment came up: Stevie Wonder's "We Can Work It Out".

Now, you've got two things going against you here:

1. No one should really cover The Beatles, right? I mean, they pretty much got it right the first time around. To me, they're an entirely un-fuckwitable band. Plus, "We Can Work It Out" was one of those perfectly blended Lennon-McCartney gems, to wit:

• Paul writing the verses, John getting in there on the chorus/bridge with some sweet harmonies;
  
• an inordinate amount of harmonium (the thing that sounds like an accordion) that does not sound cheesy (even 40 years later);
• the song is in 3 bar phrases, instead of 4 bar phrases, giving it a totally different feel than most pop-songs;
  
• those 2 bars of quarter-note triplets that end each phrase of the chorus/bridge that sound like they're in 3/4 (because the tambourine plays the 2nd and 3rd triplet like they've become quarter notes), but aren't;
  
• the song was a double A-side with "Day Tripper", and it went to Number 1 quickly.

2. Stevie Wonder is pretty un-fuckwitable himself, so what's he doing covering somebody else's song? Especially one as popular as "We Can Work It Out"?

Well, let me assure you, these two factors are quite diminished in the resulting cover:



Yeah. That's pretty great, right? Some highlights for me (this might get a little technical...):

• the opening fuzzy clavinet/electric piano...you know you're in for something funky, ya'll;
  
• the "Hey!"s on beat 4 of the first and last bar of each phrase of the verses. Reminiscent of all those current hip-hop songs that have the annoying "Heeeey" in the background (see also, T.I.'s "Live Your Life", most Lil' Jon club bangers);
• the fact the he starts the "We can work it out" line on the '&' of 4, and not the next downbeat like Paul did;
• the fact that Steven Wonderland forgoes the quarter-note triplet-not-3/4 bars and keeps it straight ahead;
• the incredibly high parts that Stevie is singing in the harmony, bridge, and the harmonica solo (those, "ah - ah - ah" parts)!;
• the harmonica solo itself;
• the general badassery of the Motown sound and backing band ('nuff said).

So, yeah, Stevie got it right. And it earned him a Grammy nomination.


"No big deal that I didn't win this time, I've got 25 others." - Stevie Wonder

Are there other good Beatles covers, you might ask? Not many. Again, I think trying to cover the Beatles is pretty pointless - if you stray too far from the original, people won't like it because it's not like the one they know; if you just try to play it like the Beatles play it, then people won't like it because they'd rather listen to the Beatles version. Catch-22, indeed.

A couple that I dig, though:


Rufus Wainwirght, "Across The Universe"


This one works because Rufus Wainwright is a good singer already, and he has taken the more direct approach on this cover. I also love the fact that he added harmony to the second chorus and subsequent verses (probably his mom, Kate McGarrigle singing). [*note: I had never seen this video before...not sure about the Rene Magritte imagery (see, "Le Fils De L'Homme"), but is that Dakota Fanning? Somebody (the director) certainly has a hard-on for French art!]

another:

Ramsey Lewis, "Cry Baby Cry"


This one works because it is a departure from the original, but then it's not. It's familiar, but doesn't get too out there to still be the song you know (how 'bout that vibra-slap!)? Plus, soul jazz usually doesn't come out this good (the string arrangements are great, and the drums stay hard). Ramsey recorded a whole album of Beatles' covers called, "Mother Nature's Son", and it's worth checking out.

one more?

William Shatner, "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"


This is not a joke. This is real. Musicians were hired, producers sat at the controls, marketing execs had the album distributed. Money was spent. Oh, what a time 1967 must have been.

The worst? Maybe this:



That's Kylie Minogue, singing "Help!" at a concert for John Lennon. Why Milli and Vanilli are up there dancing so close to her is unknown. Why the concert promoter decided to get Kylie Minogue to do this embarrassing version of a pretty great song is further unknown. The rapping bridge had to be included, however, to complete the affront to a musical legacy that this is. I think the inclusion of a dance break is pretty obvious, too.

So, that's just a sampling of what's out there. Be careful on your journey through Beatles cover songs, for every Aimee Mann/Michael Penn "Two of Us", there's usually twice as many Bee Gees "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" original motion picture soundtrack cuts.

Finally! Music Ed. and Funky Soul gets its due!

This is amazing news:



There is a documentary coming out about the Kashmere Stage Band!

Who is the Kashmere Stage Band, you ask? This was the high school jazz band at Kashmere High in Houston, Texas that performed from the late 60s to 1978. The director, Conrad Johnson basically taught these kids how to be a funk band...and the results were incredible! Seriously, before I knew these kids were in high school, I figured they were pros.

As a result of their badassery, Johnson had them record a number of 7" singles and 12" albums.

Once these masters were rediscovered, it didn't take long for DJs and crate diggers (like DJ Shadow, in particular) to get in on the action.

Check out the following:



This is from 1973, and was famously sampled in "Holy Calamity" by Handsome Boy Modeling School. High school drummer on this = fantastic.



Their cover of Dennis Coffey's "Scorpio". More breakdown niceties (maybe a little loose on those sextuplets, this time, but the flute solo is a welcome surprise).



Their cover of Sly & the Family Stone's "Thank You". A little on the front of the beat, and the percussion break almost falls apart, but nice guitar work.



The Kashmere Stage Band as sampled by DJ Shadow and Dan the Automator.

So yeah, that's a high school band.

Don't know when the movie comes out, but check out a review over at http://www.aintitcool.com/node/44272