Melody Stewart

Jordan and I recently played a night at Underground SF called CASABLANCA. Needles to say it forced me to look towards more conventional straight disco cuts in my collection. Having obsessed for so long about digging for boogie jams, electro-funk, and more obscure crossover records I'm sure the Lips Inc and Donna Summer records I have stashed in the backs of my crates are feeling neglected and underplayed.... No more!

The first two tracks are by Melody Stewart who I can't really find much info on so if anyone reads this blog and wants to contribute about her let me know. The last two are from a Vertige record I picked up back in 2002 when I first started collecting vinyl. Vertige Productions reside in NYC and according to their website are being "re-constructed", which hopefully means they will be putting out more great disco edit records in the future. Cosmic Force is actually a contemporary group, according to some Discogs discussion, whereas the flip, Clyde Alexander & Sanction, are from the heyday of boogie. Chocolate starfish is an edit by Dimitri From Paris and Got To Get Your Love is reworked by Kenny 'Dope' Gonzales. enjoy...

Melody Stewart - Action Satisfaction
Melody Stewart - Get Down, Get Down
Cosmic Force - Chocolate Starfish
Clyde Alexander & Sanction - Got To Get Your Love

Prism Records

Today we bring you two little ditties from Prism Records. Prism is one of those labels that it's hard to find any thing terrible on. Whenever I come across the Prism logo while digging it usually makes it into my crate at home.

Prism was started in NYC in the late 70's which is where a lot of the cool disco, boogie, and electro funk crossover stuff was coming out of at that time. These two tracks should give you a taste of what Prism has to offer.

Little Toni Marsh - Video Burnout
Pure Energy - Love Game

Horne & Nelson

Today we give you a Phyllis Nelson track and some Jimmy Bo Horne stuff. Horne enjoyed some success in the Disco days most notably with his track "Spank", being featured in some modern movies and TV shows alike. His work has also been sampled readily durring the late 80's and 90's by Da Lench Mob, Jungle Brothers, and the Stereo MC's song "Connected" which was featured on the Hackers sound track. Hackers... what a great film; Cyberpunks, skateboards, the "Internet", and Angelina Jolie. Somehow it ended up representing my generation. OK, I guess I got distracted

Lesson for the day, Jimmy Bo Horne leads to Hackers.

Phyllis Nelson - Stop Don't Do This To Me
Jimmy Bo Horne - Dance Across The Floor
Jimmy Bo Horne - It's Your Sweet Love

Laser Laser

Found this puppy the other day on Moby Dick Records, a label that I've found to mostly put out kind of commercial subpar string disco and 80's dance without any real character. But there are always exceptions, and Laser is one of those (along with Partners, also on Moby Dick), where a label finds some decent talent to exhibit.

It seems Laser came out with an album that was only released in Germany and never in the US, but this self titled single was fortunately brought over. Both tracks are a little more fast paced than I look for, but the healthy smattering, bordering on overdose, of filter sweeping analog synth sounds and a distinct pre-MIDI drift make for some attractive danceable doodads.

Laser - Laser
Laser - His Name Is Charlie

Creme D'Cocoa

Creme D'Cocoa is a group of cool cats from...I don't know where actually, but they funk pretty hard. Most people probably know their track Doin' The Dog form the album Nasty Street. Doin' The Dog actually showed up on the Grand Theft Auto soundtrack for the in-game K109 radio station. ROCKSTAR has always had pretty good taste when it comes to their in-game music selection in GTA. Maybe I'll have to do a post about them later on.

But I have chosen to highlight a different track from the album Nasty Street, titled Doggin' It. So without further interruption here's Creme D'Cocoa Doggin' It in the Nasty Street for your aural pleasure.

Creme D'Cocoa - Doggin' It