//Cool Ruler (July 15, 1950 - Oct 25, 2010)

//Safe travels to the Cool Ruler, the legendary Mr. Isaacs. You made it through the storm, Gregory. Thanks for the music.

Gregory Isaacs - "Storm" (DEB, 1977) (from the vinyl 7")

//GOLDEN welcomes DJ BEATNICK..

//Birthday mama Zita and yours truly welcome our fam from San Diego-- DJ Beatnick holds it down in the southern reaches of the Golden State and we are elated to have him join us this Saturday. If you've been sleeping, definitely tune in to his Culture Podcast for an espresso shot to get you awoke.

//and for the queen, freshly ripped from vinyl:
Steel Pulse - "Throne of Gold" (Elektra, 1984)

//GOLDEN Return..

Mike Baker the Bike Maker f/ Trackademicks & 1-O.A.K. "Golden Girl"

//Born Day Bizness..

//Whatup familia!

//Usually I stay pretty low-key for my birthday..it's right around the corner and wifey & I will be in Hawai'i, but there happens to be the perfect Sunday afternoon affair for an early celebration in the Town: the homie DJ Tim Diesel and the good people at my favorite Oakland spot The Layover have opened the doors for a 2-6pm happy hour every Sunday, and Tim has been gracias enough as to invite me & Z to spin this weekend. Drop by to say hello, grab some cheap drinks, a hoagie, throw down some bones, and vibe to some supreme sounds laid down by Zita and yours truly.

//Later on we'll take it up a notch at what is one of the best weekly dj events in the Bay: MÄJOR Sundays @ SOMÄR with DJ Mpenzi on the wheels, j.sight on the lens and special guest DJ mOma (NYC/the Good Spot). Last April we had the chance to swing through The Good Spot in the Lower East Side NYC and it was one of the most fun nights I have experienced in a long time. The Good Spot's got a good thing going and MÄJOR is its west coast sister, so you know it's going down!

THIS SUNDAY, AUGUST 15:

LAY IT DOWN
Sundays @ The Layover
Tim Diesel
special guests Zita x Dmadness
2pm-6pm no cover
1517 Franklin
Downtown Oakland

MÄJOR
Sundays @ SOMÄR
DJ Mpenzi & j.sight
special guest DJ mOma
10pm-2am no cover
1727 Telegraph Ave
Uptown Oakland

The Good Spot Vol II by DJ mOma & Stimulus

//The Cee-Lo Green Mix: Download + Outtakes..

//And now for your listening pleasure..
The Cee-Lo Green Mix by DJ Dmadness:
80mins/44 tracks of Green magic from the catalogs of Goodie Mob, OutKast, Dungeon Family, Gnarls Barkley and Cee-Lo's extensive revelatory solo and collaborative work.

download on soundcloud
stream/download on mixcrate
download track-separated mix

1 Blackberry Molasses
2 Gettin' Grown
3 In Due Time
4 Thought Process
5 Reset
6 Insp Her Ation
7 Right Now
8 Soul Food (Live Remix)
9 Let's Stay Together
10 All Day Love Affair
11 Blood
12 Die Trying
13 G.O.D. (Gaining One's Definition)
14 Backyard Mississippi
15 Whoa Now
16 Free
17 Git Up, Git Out
18 Beautiful Skin/The Experience
19 Crooked Therapy/Cell Therapy
20 Liberation
21 Slum Beautiful
22 Fly Away
23 Soul Machine
24 Who Cares?
25 Watch for the Hook
26 Southern Man by Merry Clayton
27 Rebuilding
28 I'll Be Around
29 The One
30 Get Rich to This
31 Trans DF Express
32 Black Ice (Goodie Version)
33 Dirty South Remix
34 I Want You
35 Follow the Light
36 Crazy (D's Blend)
37 Living Again
38 Pretty Please (Love Me)
39 Lil Star
40 You Don't Shock Me Anymore
41 Closet Freak
42 Ophidiophobia
43 Bass Head Jazz
44 Georgia

*CD available at The Giant Peach

//Here are some additional notes about selected tracks, along with some loose vinyl rips for the DJs..

Mista "Blackberry Molasses (Organized Noize Remix)"

One of my favorite 12"s I ever found in a 50 cent bin at Amoeba. Bobby Valentino was part of this pubescent mid-90s R&B quartet whose self-titled LP was produced by ONP. I always liked the smoove original but with the harder beat and Cee-Lo's verse this is golden.

OutKast with Cee-Lo "In Due Time (Acapella)"
A great track from the Soul Food soundtrack. Remix anyone?

OutKast "Reset" - Now that Big Boi has dropped a classic solo album (I don't use that term lightly) maybe folks will go back and see what a good disc Speakerboxxx was.

Goodie MOB "Soul Food (Live Remix with Little John and The Chronicle)"

Love the loose feel of this version. This 12" was pulled off the shelves because I guess Tabasco didn't want to be associated with one of the most classic albums from the South. I have one of my favorite promo items around here, a Soul Food "menu" promoting the album.

Goodie MOb "Blood" - While the classic 1st LP Soul Food ran just the hook as a pensive interlude, the full-length version with incredible verses showed up on America is Dying Slowly, a pretty good compilation that was part of the Red Hot AIDS Benefit Series.

Goodie MOb "Rebuilding" - While most of their 1999 LP World Party was forgettable compared to their first 2 albums, tucked into the second half was this production by an up-and-coming young cat named Kanye West.

Cee-Lo "You Don't Shock Me Anymore" - My favorite track from the eclectic Stray Bullets mixtape that dropped last month.

Gnarls Barkley "Crazy (D's Blend)"

Of course everybody knows this vocal, but not everyone might know that the track I blended it with, "Don't Cha" by Tori Alamaze (later re-done by The Pussycat Dolls) was written and produced by Cee-Lo.

//+more
These are songs I had in the crate that I had to cut or for whatever reason didn't fit. They are all worth tracking down..

-Esthero & Goodie MOb "World I Know (Country Livin')" - From the Slam soundtrack, they remixed the song from her album and it is awesome.
-Goodie MOb "Goodie Bag" - Cee-Lo freestyles his verse!
-Witchdoctor "7th Floor/The Serengetti f/ Cee-Lo" - Incredible way to open an album
-Musiq Soulchild "Momentinlife f/ Kindred the Family Soul & Cee-Lo" - A great soul collab
-Goodie MOb "Inshallah" - with one of my favorite Big Gipp verses
-Scar "What is This? f/ Cee-Lo" & Goodie MOb "Hold On" - From Big Boi's Purple Ribbon comp
-Trick Daddy "In Da Wind f/ Cee-Lo & Big Boi" + "Sugar (Gimme Some) f/ Ludacris & Cee-Lo" - Those hooks!
-Cee-Lo Green "What Part of Forever" & "Language of Love" - I guess these still need to grow on me. From Twilight:Eclipse and Sex In The City 2 soundtracks respectively.
-Seeed "Aufstehn f/ Cee-Lo" - singing with some German reggae cats

//The Cee-Lo Green Mix release 7/18/10

//I am excited and honored to release my latest composition, The Cee-Lo Green Mix. Cee-Lo is one of the greatest, most soulful artists of my generation. He is sonically and vocally fearless, his sound is vast, and his writing is revelatory.

//More than a tribute, my goal was to create a definitive Cee-Lo mix, drawing from the catalogs of Goodie MOb, OutKast, Gnarls Barkley, his solo albums, his collaborative work, and of course rare remixes, b-sides, soundtrack joints, 12"s and more. Aside from the entire Organized Noize/Dungeon Family there are records with Pharrell, Common, Estelle, Kelis, Jack Splash, Da Ranjahs, Eightball & MJG as well as productions from Kanye West, Timbaland, Menahan Street Band, DJ Premier and more.

//I again enlisted Oakland artist Jidan Koon to create the visuals, and again she came through extra large, painting a vibrant, psychedelic watercolor worthy of the music.

This Sunday, July 18 I'll be spinning a guest set (not all Cee-Lo) with my brothers DJ Mpenzi and j s i g h t at their excellent weekly MÄJOR at Somar Bar in Oakland. The first 50 good people get a free copy of the mix, which is also available from the good folks at The Giant Peach.//The Green magic of Cee-Lo can be summarized in this commentary about his verse on OutKast's "Liberation" (from the excellent 12th-anniversary article on the making of Aquemini in Atlanta's alternative weekly Creative Loafing).

"What inspired those words, I can't say. I was out of my mind during that time. I was just very, very obedient to what was moving and motivating me. And, of course, to be liberal and to be liberated was an artistic aspiration and a personal aspiration of mine, too, so it was just all relative."

//Living My Life Like It's GOLDEN..

+ some audio treats ripped from vinyl:

José Feliciano - "Golden Lady" (RCA, 1975)



Collén & Webb - "Golden (Tighten Jill Up)" (G.A.M.M., 2004)