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"Blind Alley" appreciation

mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
edited May 2012 in Strut Central




Soooooooo good

Matthew Africa and I teamed up to break down "Blind Alley," complete with annotations.
http://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/soulsides/breaking-down-the-emotions-blind-alley

  Comments

  • strataspherestratasphere Blastin' the Nasty 1,035 Posts
    This record got hit up a lot for a reason. The drums hit a little harder on the mono version. Both sound great regardless.
  • dj_cityboydj_cityboy 1,478 Posts
    dope that was awesome!

    suck a sick track end to end, only wish it was a bit longer...the dailydiggers (aint no half stepping) flip is dope

  • big earbig ear 67 Posts
    wonderful track from start to finish and also one of my favourite breaks ever.
    love it!
  • dukeofdelridgedukeofdelridge urgent.monkey.mice 2,453 Posts
    plaese 2 include babu's juggle in pt.2 thx
  • Big_ChanBig_Chan 5,088 Posts
    dukeofdelridge said:
    plaese 2 include babu's juggle in pt.2 thx

    0:59

  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    big ear said:
    wonderful track from start to finish and also one of my favourite breaks ever.
    love it!
  • dj_cityboydj_cityboy 1,478 Posts
    Big_Chan said:

    0:59

    :face_melt:

    dayum! so dope
  • tripledoubletripledouble 7,636 Posts
    mike from vinyldogs recently played me a instrumental version of blind alley which he said was some kind of re-edit done off some master tapes? blind alley rulez
  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    Babu is killin it but could we teleport the head bobbing studio geeks elsewhere.
  • staxwaxstaxwax 1,474 Posts


    :game_over:
  • we_eat_trainswe_eat_trains 112 Posts
    tripledouble said:
    mike from vinyldogs recently played me a instrumental version of blind alley which he said was some kind of re-edit done off some master tapes? blind alley rulez

    Picked this up at Big City, "Bumpys Lament" on the other side.
  • YemskyYemsky 710 Posts
    batmon said:
    "could we teleport the head bobbing studio geeks elsewhere.

    Broths is so distracting.
  • The_Hook_UpThe_Hook_Up 8,182 Posts
    Being that my fave thing about the song is the arrangement of the vocals...I love the way the verse kicks in with a gusto as if it is the middle of the verse like the ladies have already been singing their ass off for half a song, the playing around with the opening break bores and frustrates me...I keep waiting for the fireworks that are the vocals to kick in but they never seem to arrive when some dude is cutting up the break...yawn
  • Big_StacksBig_Stacks "I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
    Hey,

    "Blind Alley" is that ill shit, the pinnacle of soul sistah funky madness. I like how the rhythm section revs things up at the beginning, culminating into the high-powered, soulful vocals of the ladies. It's beautiful in its funky simplicity, one of my all-time favorite breaks (and a great song overall). Often times, less is indeed more!

    Peace,

    Big Stacks from Kakalak
  • tripledoubletripledouble 7,636 Posts
    gotta agree with hook and stacks about the vocals. i didnt pick up the new instrumental, although i thought it was cool that its out there for producers. the song is perfection in my book
  • tripledoubletripledouble 7,636 Posts
    but also hookup, keep in mind, babu and premier were pretty much showing how even little minute snippets of blind alley are just so dope that they can be looped up (or juggled) to make loops/tracks that have very very little to do with the original melody but still sound great
  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    I also think Babu's juggling is grade a wack.
  • GrandfatherGrandfather 2,303 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    I also think Babu's juggling is grade a wack.

    fighting words.
  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    Grandfather said:
    HarveyCanal said:
    I also think Babu's juggling is grade a wack.

    fighting words.

    Watched the youtube because I was sure I'd like it. Actually surprised that I didn't...at all.
  • JATXJATX 258 Posts
    Wow. Babu's Blind Alley juggle is classic and very big amongst the "turntablist" scene of the late 90s.
    This is way more than a dude cutting up a break. This is the juggle, along with some X-Men routines, that every dj was secretley practicing in their bed room. This is a very influential routine.
  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    JATX said:
    Wow. Babu's Blind Alley juggle is classic and very big amongst the "turntablist" scene of the late 90s.
    This is way more than a dude cutting up a break. This is the juggle, along with some X-Men routines, that every dj was secretley practicing in their bed room. This is a very influential routine.

    How was it "influential" when that juggling steez basically died about as fast it gained any shred of popularity beyond bedrooms and dj contests?
  • JATXJATX 258 Posts
    JATX said:
    Wow. Babu's Blind Alley juggle is classic and very big amongst the "turntablist" scene of the late 90s.
    This is way more than a dude cutting up a break. This is the juggle, along with some X-Men routines, that every dj was secretley practicing in their bed room. This is a very influential routine.

    How was it "influential" when that juggling steez basically died about as fast it gained any shred of popularity beyond bedrooms and dj contests?[/quo

    Influential as in back then if you were going to be this type of dj this is what you practiced. Along with X-Men routines, of course. I put Rob Swift's "Heartbeat" routine and Sinista's "Method Man" routine as goats, along with Babu's "Blind Alley."
  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    Gotcha, but IMO that juggling shit killed live deejaying tricks. Used to regularly hear everyday deejay's do subtle tricks within their party mixes. Then the spotlight for such tricks got so big that it seemed to polarize deejays between straight mixers and striaght tricksters with hardly anything in between. Sure, someone like J Rocc bridged the gap well, but the end result of all that experimentation improperly passed off as an end-product sent the whole thing back to the drawing board in a bad way.

    The parallel I would make would be when jazz musicians went so far with their avant-guardness that they temporarily made the mistake of thinking that free jazz would be a good idea. They sincerely thought they were advancing their music, which they were on a certain level, but look at the bigger picture and they were really setting it back.
  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    Part Deux: http://soul-sides.com/2012/05/breaking-down-blind-alley-part-two/
  • dj_cityboydj_cityboy 1,478 Posts
    dope!
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