H.P. Riot

Last time I was at my Dad's house my son was digging through the garage and came across a pile of my old records.  Mixed in was a bunch of my brothers and one of them was a record I had never seen before.

Now this fantastic gem needs a little explaining.  It was recorded in Vancouver, B.C. in 1973 and released on Concept Records which was based in Regina Saskatchewan.  Now comes the puzzling part. The band was a funk band from San Francisco.  A 10 piece 'rock and soul' band that took their name from the neighbourhood they grew up in Hunter's Point.  Named after a 'race riot' that took place there in 1966.

On the back cover it says:  Hunter's Point Riot, better known as H.P. Riot, is excitement.  Excitement in sound, excitement in feel, excitement in movement, and, especially, excitement in their ability as performers.  It's music from the soul.

Makes perfect sense to me.  What we have here is a San Fran funk band that spent a large amount of time touring and preaching the funk gospel to Western Canada, and probably signed the record deal while on tour.  That's how lots of funk bands did it.  I'll let you take a minute to come up with some other 70's funk bands that took the same route.  Go ahead, I'll wait...........I spent a bit of time on it myself and didn't come up with anything either.  Talk about taking the unconventional path.

But enough of all that, it's the music that's important right!  Well the music is good.  Early 70's funk done the right way by young men eager to be heard.  I've managed to get my hands on a second copy (in case my brother wants his back) and I've seen it around here and there so I could get a few more, but it seems outside of Vancouver it's on the rare side.  If you can get your hands on it I would highly recommend it.

For now let me give you a taste.

Song 1, Side 2 "Help Me (Get It On)"

Dance The Night Away

Sometimes a song shouldn't be covered, and if it is great care should be taken.  Case in point, Santana's cover of 'Dance the Night Away' from Van Halen 2.  I could take the easy route and just say it sucks and be done with it but for me it goes beyond that.  A cover should bring something new to the table.  Spin it in a different direction, off course if you will.  You should still hear the original intent but why not push it a bit.  


The cover on the album 'Strummin' with the Devil' is an example.  I'll admit I'm not totally in love with this version either but at least they re-interpreted it a bit. 


When it comes to Santana, I'm starting to get a little disappointed in some of the choices made in the twilight of his career.  He seems to be content with noodling over top of other peoples music and cashing the cheques.  The music he made early in his career ranks up there with some of the all time classic rock songs.  Now, not so much. He has instead decided to cover others peoples songs.  And while I applaud the idea of making a cover album of great guitar rock songs, there really should be a 'parachute clause' built into the process where if what is coming out of the speakers sucks everyone involved should stop before anymore damage is done.  For those of you that haven't heard it here is a link:


http://www.vhnd.com/2010/09/19/santanas-cover-of-dance-the-night-away/


I won't post it on here because, well, I don't like so it has no business on this blog.


This is the Stummin version:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7XHoncmCd0&p=014FCCBAF3257C32&playnext=1&index=1

Now in an effort to cleanse here is the orig...

Now that is how it should be done.  The covers can now drift away into obscurity please.

Money for Nothing

So the CRTC has banned 'Money For Nothing' because of the word 'faggot'.  It only took them over 25 years to get around to it though.  I find it interesting that a song that went to number one, stayed there for around three weeks, won a Grammy, had already gone through the same controversy when it originally came out, is now thrust back into the spotlight because 1 person complained. ONE.  Not a gay and lesbian alliance, not a whole group of people, but one person who obviously didn't pay attention to the context that the word was used.  Don't get me wrong, calling someone that word is wrong on many levels, but in the song, the character that utters the word is a caricature of a knuckle dragger that uses the word because he is jealous that the rock star on TV is getting more tail than him.  Could Mark Knopfler have gone with a different word?  Yep, and he did in a radio edit that was done in the 80's.  Does he have to?  Now that is a different question because there is something called artistic license, not to mention freedom of expression.  Up here in the Great White North in a little document called the 'Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms' in section 2(b) there is a provision that guarantees: "Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: ... (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication". 


So what's next.  I can think of numerous songs that if you picked apart the lyrics, you could find issues.  Not gonna list them though.... no need to make it easy on anyone.  If someone wants to do that I ain't going to help.


I guess the only thing I can do is this....

Oh, by the way..... Money For Nothing is number 91 on the iTunes top download charts.  Not too shabby for a 25 year old song.