S/D -- The Numero Group

i really enjoy the "downriver revival" collection, but does anyone else think the liner notes are unnecessarily condescending to the produer/artists involved? and frankly the numero group people seen interviewing the musicians on the accompanying DVD seem a bit peevish and assholish.

"holy fuck have y'all heard the 24 carat black?"

spooky!

just ordered "lonesome heroes", really looking forward to hearing it.

xxp numero liner notes always have that tone--i can see why u could read as "condescending" but i think they're trying to be a little flavorful and romantic, even precious. i'd prefer something more straightforward myself but hey. i didn't think the dvd had any weirdness tho.

the numero group people seen interviewing the musicians on the accompanying DVD seem a bit peevish and assholish.

I didn't detect that at all. OTOH, I've only made it through about half the DVD. Certainly, they'd better not be peevish or assholish, since its critical that the Numero Group maintain a good, respectful relationship with the people who own the master tapes the label seeks to reissue.

assholish was too strong.

at one point one of the folks they're interviewing says he doesn't have someone's phone number, then a few minutes later he remembers, and one of the numero guys gives the camera this look like "oh, what a fucking moron." i mean, come on. you're talking to an elderly guy about folks he recorded 40+ years ago. give him a break.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/oct/22/numero-group

That's a nice article. Just before hitting the link, I was afraid it was about the label shutting down. I had no real reason to believe that, except (a) it had been awhile since I received my last disc from them (I'm on the annual subscription plan) and (b) a lot of labels have folded recently. Anyway, very glad to hear the label is alive and well.

Just saw the Eccentric Soul review tour before a small DC crowd. Syl Johnson was a lot of fun--seemed drunk but his raspy soul vocals on numbers like "Any way the Wind Blows," "Come on, Sock it to Me," and "Take Me to the River" sounded great. He was carrying on between several songs about royalties he got from Wu Tang Clan and Kid Rock samples, and he was happily reminiscing about his 1968 appearance at the Howard Theatre. Plus he was wearing a Megadeth t-shirt under his sports jacket. Renaldo Domino wasn't bad and the young backing band JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound were kind of uneven, but mostly impressive. The Notations harmonies and gold jackets were awesome, although they spent too much time doing jokes and schtick.

revue

Sounds like a good time!

I just got the Light: On The South Side Book + 2xLP and I highly recommend it!

havent seen any of the numero shows but i caught syl perform in the interlude at a sharon jones show a year ago ... killed it

x-post. They were selling all the Numero Group stuff at the DC show and I looked through that impressive book of '70s era Southside Chicago photos of soul club patrons and stuff, and was so tempted to to spend the $60 for the book and record, but I chickened out. The book also made me wish I had been taking pics at obscure DC soul joints and shows I have been to since the '80s.

I'm an annual subscriber, and I haven't heard from the label lately. I hope they're again doing annual subscriptions for 2010.

The Ligt: On The South Side is worth the 60$ I promise.

Light*

are they releasing that on CD? i know, that sounds so tacky, but there you go.

Haha no clue but it would be funny if it was just a scaled down replica of the original.

Opening song (Like A Ship) on the new release (Good God! Born Again Funk) is remarkable.

BTW, the label is offering subscriptions again in 2010. Price has gone up some ($150.00). Looks like The Numero Group is branching out into video, too (e.g., NYC video maker's lost gems collected on a DVD that is part of the 2010 subscription).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UdZSrEos-k

want

yeah! that looks great.

LONE STAR LOWLANDS! YEAH!

it's like they had a meeting and said, hey, is there anything we can do for scott? he's a good guy, what would he like?

HE LIKE THIS!

but now i want the vinyl version with extra songs. i'm so greedy.

after first hearing it, i was afraid that no. 034 -- local customs: lone star lowlands -- might be the first numero disc i didn't like. but it's really, really grown on me.

my record store seems to basically not be stocking new numero anymore? sucks.

local customs totally grew on me too, now it might really be one of my favourites

they released that mixtape, too, but i didn't receive it (and i'm an annual subscriber). i wonder if it was released on one of numero's sister labels.

yeah i don't think the mixtape was technically a numero release

nice review of the new disc:

Lone Star Lowlands , the second installment in the Numero Group’s Local Customs series, collects material recorded in the Port Neches, Texas Lowlands studio between 1969 and 1974. Located in the center of east Texas’s “Golden Triangle” (home to Janis Joplin and Johnny and Edgar Winter), Lowlands was opened up in a strip mall by Mickey Rouse, professional accountant and amateur musician, in late ‘69, and made most of its money recording commercial jingles. What Lone Star Lowlands collects, needless to say, is the rest of the studio’s material, largely the work of aspiring local musicians hoping to market themselves with a well-cut demo single. None of the acts here ever hit it big — the obscurity is, of course, part of the raison d’être of Numero’s project — but most of the material here is unabashedly commercial. Indeed, there’s nothing quirky or unexpected about any of the artists represented here, who come across not as outsiders or provincial dilettantes, but aspiring professionals trying to respond to a rapidly changing music scene.

While a number of genres (blues and boogie rock, hard rock, jazzy pop) are represented on the album, the bulk of the material is mellow folky pop, a less hip, more “adult” counterpart to Crosby, Stills and Nash or Joni Mitchell. While a look at the track line-up suggests a large group of different musicians, the music collected here is largely the work of a close network of associated musicians; this, along with the common producer/engineer (Rouse), gives Lone Star Lowlands a more cohesive feel than one might otherwise expect from a selection of singles. The strongest among them are Mother Lion’s “Simple House,” a perfectly constructed pop-rock mini-epic that recalls The Looking Glass’s “Brandy,” and Boot Hill’s “No Control,” a knockout fusion of Led Zeppelin blues metal and King Crimson-ish noodling.

Two names pop up again and again, dominating the collection — those of Bill Swicegood (who played keys with Mother Lion) and Bobby Welch, both of whom are represented under several different monikers on the collection. Swicegood’s contributions are consummately professional, but somewhat stodgy, tending toward buoyant and sappy acoustic pop (Insight Out’s “Live My Life Today,” Sage’s “Everyday is Saturday”) — polished but pedestrian feel-good flowery fluff that would fit right in on early ’70s AM radio. Welch functions as a sort of youthful counterpart, representing the late vestiges of teen-oriented bubble-gum psychedelia (Mourning Sun’s “Let’s Take a Walk in the Woods”) and some no less bubble-gummy stabs at country rock (“Benashaw Glen”). Had they been more successful, both would have likely been dismissed as terribly un-hip and commercial (as would most of the artists here), but in this context their music is a fascinating and highly enjoyable record of the time, a forgotten double or mirror image of the period’s popular music.

I liked the Lonesome Heroes comp and am looking forward to Syl Johnson's set, which comes in October. Over the years I've come to love the Antena record a lot. And the Jarnow stuff is great. The label has really flowered over the last couple of years. I'm proud to say I wrote the liners for a couple of Asterisk reissues, the Caroline Peyton records on Bar-B-Q. She's still doing an occasional show and just did one in Nashville last month, still has that amazing voice but doesn't do very many of those songs (mostly Mark Bingham tunes) any more--writing stuff in a folkier/country vein these days.

lone star lowlands is very sweet. am bubblegum meets country rock sound reminded me of the twin engine record that rev-ola put out a few years back

i wrote it up for my column in decibel. first numero group review in an american heavy metal magazine? i'm a bold pioneer.

review available online?

print only! it's like the dark ages or something. my column isn't huge so i have to cram in as much as i can. i don't get to really stretch out and talk about something. i have to be in and out and hope my hyperbole makes people curious about a record that i really dig. well, you've been on ilm for a while, you know how i roll.

i will seek out a print copy of decibel magazine.

someday the internet will be no more, and only those journals who know how to survive in the print-era will flourish.

are getting these on CDs or vinyl or both?

my subscription is cd-only. idk if they have a vinyl-subscription option (but it would make sense).

they've been pretty quiet for a few months; i need to check the site and see if something's up.

hm. syl johnson's Complete Mythology is apparently coming out later this month, so all must be well.

forthcoming box-set from numero group:

Boddie Breaking Out -- by Numero Group on Monday, November 8, 2010 at 11:33am.

We had hoped that Plain-Dealer writer Robert L. Smith would heed our advice and not publish this article until our massive Boddie Recording Co. 4CD/6LP box drops next year, but it looks like his editor had the final say. For those not in the know, educate yourselves.

the article

pretty much in love with the two local customs releases, want mooooore.

Has anyone else checked out the Willie Wright release? Lovely low-key music from an R&B musician turned 70s singer-songwriter. There's not much on Youtube apart from a Curtis Mayfield cover ("Right on for the darkness") and the introspective "Africa":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQmlIsLX30s

eesh, this looks cool. wish i had the $$ to buy everything this label puts out! american heroes.
http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/z/zzboddierecordingcomp_101b.jpg
Boddie Recording Company – Cleveland, Ohio
rom 1958 to 1993, Thomas and Louise Boddie’s industrious Boddie Recording Company issued nearly 300 albums and 45s, recorded 10,000 hours of tape, and remained in operation longer than any other studio, pressing plant, or label group in the history of Cleveland. Long forgotten even by the standards of the chronically overlooked northeastern Ohio music scene, Boddie was a fusion of its owner’s engineering genius and his limited economic means; its DIY recording studio housed in a humble barn, churned night and day to capture the sounds emanating from Cleveland’s east side neighborhoods. The 58 tracks on these three CDs (or 65 track 5LP) represent the best of the Boddies’ in-house Soul Kitchen, Luau, and Bounty labels, which released an unspoiled treasure trove of kitchen-sink eccentric soul, fuzzbox funk, shoestring doo-wop, and haunted, eerily hook-laden spirituals. Enclosed inside is a mountain of office-styled ephemera: two massive booklets brimming with detail on the Boddies and their and their artists; extensive notes and scores of unpublished photos; a complete detailed discography folio; reproduced fliers; and a Boddie greeting card—all rendered with the handcrafted charm that was the Boddie hallmark. Call it a self-contained record industry crammed into one box.

i ordered this on the internet! i don't think i've ever done that before. um, aside from ebay.

should get mine, like, monday. if you pre-ordered on numero site you got a live soul album that boddie pressed. not available in stores!

not the actual copy that boddie pressed. there is just one acetate i think. a numero-pressed version.

that set looks great but y'all should really start getting excited about their upcoming Richard Pegue set. I know I am. "Scorpio" by the South Suburban Strings is one of my all-time fave funk 45's

yeah. i'm hoping the label continues its subscription program in 2012.

i like it when they step out of their soul-reissue comfort zone. the antena disc, for instance, was killer.

me too! i love the cult cargo series.