James Brown – Chez Lubacov

DJ Catalist – Hot Witness
label: BSTRD Boots
year: 2010
soundcloud.com/alisterjohnson | facebook.com/alisterjohnson
side a: Hot Witness
side b: Real Soul

7" Series 746: DJ Catalist - Hot Witness

Great little mashup here of Marvin Gaye‘s classic “Can I Get A Witness” and Byron Lee & The Dragonaires‘ cover of James Brown‘s “Hot Pants”, “Make It Reggae”. On the flip, another Marvin track, his duet with Tammi Terrell, “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing” gets tangled up with Lennie Hibbert‘s cover of Johnny Lytle‘s “The Village Caller”, “Village Soul”.

Are you still there? Hello?

Alister Johnson did a quite brilliant job, I’d say. The tunes sound really natural, and they work on the dance floor, too! You can stream/download “Hot Witness” from Catalist’s Soundcloud page.
Which is nice.

7-inch series, part 690 – The Sweet Vandals

The Sweet Vandals – Charlie Love
label: Unique
year: 2007
side a: Charlie Love
side b: Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag
www.myspace.com/thesweetvandals

Like many of their colleagues, The Sweet Vandals fail to entirely convince me on their records. And their choice of cover songs is not very lucky. I’ve heard them play a not so good version of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and this version of “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” isn’t my cup of tea, either. Granted, it’s virtually impossible to do good versions of songs by masters like James Brown and Marvin Gaye, but if you know that, don’t try unless you’re incredibly good.

That said, they are a really good live band and singer Mayka Edyole is a great performer. So who am I to criticise, yes?

Here’s a video of The Sweet Vandals playing “Charlie Love” live on German television.