Aesop's Fables EP

Another holiday EP folks. 8 tracks, 15 minutes. These EPs are getting shorter and shorter, but also better I hope.

It's called Aesop's Fables. Tracklist:

1 Aesop's Fables
2 That Rumba
3 Transparent Backflipping Camels 3
4 Ambiguity
5 Up On The Hill
6 Transparent Backflipping Camels 4
7 The Tinker's Lament
8 Elevator Chase

Jesse did all the stuff you hear: keys, guitar, bass, drums, manditar*, violin, viola, scratching, sampling, programming, recording, & composing. Plus he recorded it all on half-inch tape, for that je ne sais quoi he's always on about. If you record something onto tape with the level too high, it compresses rather than clips. Tape compression is lovely. For example, the piano on the last track is recorded "too" high...

Thanks for checking it out my friends. Drive safe. Happy New Year!

* combination guitar and mandolin. Shaped like a mandolin, looks & sounds like one, except it has 6 strings rather than 4 pairs, and the strings are tuned like a guitar rather than a mandolin.

Rafferty Funksmith -- Live Vinyl Set @ the Royal -- March 29th 2011

Rafferty Funksmith - Live Vinyl Set @ the Royal - March 29 2011 by Rafferty Funksmith

There's more info at the soundcloud page if you want. Basically it was a night I played with Joel West, and we swapped off every hour or so. So at the beginning of the mix you hear Joel's last track, and at the end you hear Joel get back on for 3 tracks.
Here's a tracklist for those of you who like to look at lists of tracks:

01 The Chilites --- Have You Seen Her
02 Dr Dre --- Nothin But A G Thang
03 Radiohead --- The National Anthem / Audio II --- Top Billin' (acapella)
04 Bill Withers --- Kissin' My Love
05 Edan --- The E's Have It
06 Taj Mahal --- Gonna Buy You A Chevrolet
07 Gang Starr --- Full Clip
08 A Tribe Called Quest --- Check The Rhime
09 The Meters --- Funky Miracle
10 The Chambers Brothers --- Funky
11 Trouble Funk --- E Flat Boogie
12 James Brown --- Soul Power
13 Parliament --- Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucka)
14 Sly & The Family Stone --- Thank You Fahlettinme Be Mice Elf Agin
15 Blondie --- Rapture
16 KC & The Sunshine Band --- I Get Lifted
17 Otis & Carla --- Tramp
18 The Chilites --- We Are Neighbors
19 Manu Dibango --- Weya
20 War --- Galaxy

Then Joel finishes it off with:

21 Meco --- Star Wars
22 Prince --- Kiss
23 The Isley Brothers --- Fight the Power

Oh man, you don't even know.

Word On The Street EP

umm, so I'm hosting files at divshare now. It's better. All the old links still work though, for the time being.

Anyways, here's some music from Rafferty Records or whatever, it's 13 tracks:

01) Pansy Groove
02) Chinwax
03) 12-Inch Mandatory Boot Screef 2010
04) I Am No Thief
05) A Word That Means Something Else
06) A Special Moment
07) The Lusty Skeleton
08) Feelin' Better
09) Everybody Likes Strawberries
10) Purple Groove
11) Tikki Tembo
12) Dog's Grandchild
13) What A Wonderful World

All the music is by me (Jesse Lee) except the last one, which is by Bob Thiele & George Weiss but arranged by me. Incidentally, Louis Armstrong recorded that song in 1968, and it didn't do very well in the States but topped the singles charts in the UK, making Mr Armstrong the oldest man to top the charts, at 66 years old. (His record in that regard stood until 2009.) 20 years later, in 1988, the single was re-released in the US and made it to #38. So now you know that.

I had a bit of help on this recording, from Kyran Kennedy (vox on #08), Brian Rosen (perc on #08, flute on #05, plus I used his drum kit), Ben Euerby (sax on #02), and Ty West (I used his guitar and rig for tracks 02, 03, 05, 08, and 12, plus I received a certain amount of funkiness from his via osmosis. The good kind of funkiness.)

Get this EP right here if you dare. Peace.

Crate Kings 5: Stax o' Wax

They done it again. The hooligans over at Crate Kings have finished up their 5th beat compilation, this time sampling music released on the Stax record label.

Stax was founded in 1957 in Memphis Tennessee and was home to such notable and influential artists as Otis Redding, the Bar-Kays, Sam & Dave, Rufus Thomas, Albert King, Wilson Pickett (sort of--he recorded there but released his records under Atlantic), Eddie Floyd and Issac Hayes. Even Elvis Presley recorded three albums there at some point. The house band was the mighty Booker T & the MGs, who also had successful records of their own. Stax flourished through the 60s only to descend into financial ruin and close down in 1975.

The irreverant beatsmiths who congregate at the Crate Kings forums decided to plunder Stax's legacy of classic music and rework it into a respectful tribute to this renowned record label. 37 tracks were blended by Rafferty the DJ into a cohesive musical and historical statement guaranteed to not only educate you, but also put you in a neck-brace for the remainder of the summer. (uh, by that I mean you will physically express your enjoyment of the music to the point of bodily harm.)



Isn't the art nice? It's done by Flipa, who also contributed several excellent tracks to the project. Here's that tracklist again if you can't read the teeny writing above:

01. Rafferty Funksmith – Stax of Wax Intro
02. Broskie Woskie – Thr33 The RAW Way
03. UhOh – Travelled Road
04. The Close Shop – Oddity
05. Kwes the Bess – Walk You Home
06. Parry Illest (P.illa) – Hayestacks
07. Four Eights – Soul Jabes0
08. Qurz – Stax of Wax
09. R. K. Cerman – Grab This Thing
10. NormalZ – Long Jumping
11. Saint Bastard – Stax On Stax Off
12. Jajoe – Thicker Than Water
13. WHP – Staxasaurus Rex
14. AMFM – Love You
15. Crushproof – Lifted
16. Jajoe – Over
17. Flipa – True Love
18. Parry Illest (P.illa) – Bosac
19. Flipa – Hayes
20. B. Dolla – Doggone Good
21. AMFM – AMFMISAAC
22. WHP – Staxerlude
23. Rafferty Funksmith – Steady Beakin’
24. Yabba – Walk On
25. The Close Shop – Booking
26. R. K. Cerman – Stay
27. RESTLESS – $50 Habit
28. Flipa – Parker
29. A Word From Mr Isaac Hayes
30. Panamacanal – Watts
31. Qurz – Cruisin’ Route 66
32. R. K. Cerman – I Know
33. Crushproof – Fatal Barbs
34. Astatic – Woo Hoo
35. Cashus Flow – Firework Finale
36. Chi-Stey – Good As Gold
37. Parry Illest (P.illa) – Born To Love

So if you'd like to listen to it, why don't you download it?

Rafferty's Magic Funk Balm

Rafferty Records has a little something-something for your hungry ears: an all-vinyl funk/disco/soul extravaganza. It's basically a dream come true, but see for yourself:

01 Timmy Thomas - Why Can't We Live Together
02 Quincy Jones - Boogie Joe the Grinder
03 Blondie - Rapture
04 James Brown - Soul Power
05 The Player's Association - Love Hangover
06 Raydio - Hot Stuff
07 David Matthews with Whirlwind - Gotta Be Where You Are
08 Taj Mahal - West Indian Revelation
09 Brick - Happy
10 Ramsey Lewis - Hot Dawgit
11 The Commodores - Look What You've Done To Me
12 Kenny Rogers - Tulsa Turnaround
13 Galt MacDermot - Aquarius
14 Donovan - Hurdy Gurdy Man
15 The Honeydrippers - Impeach the President
16 Joe Tex - I Gotcha
17 The Soul Searchers - Ashley's Roachclip

click here for the one-track version at Soundcloud, for streaming/downloading
click here for the mix separated into 17 tracks, suitable for your car or whatever

Thanks for listening!

Jesse's EP for the 2009 Holiday Season

I'm gonna have to get a new free file-hosting situation, because 4shared likes to occasionally delete files for no apparent reason. Also last year they declared one of our files to be a violation of copyright without telling us or asking us about it. (They were correct, but still. Rafferty Records isn't about making fat cash selling music, either our own or sampled; and we are well below the radar; and as Biz Markie once said, everyone else is doing it. Go pick on someone else.) If anyone knows of a hassle-freer way to go please let us know.

Anyways, here's a little something from Jesse over at Rafferty Records. It's 7 tracks, originals and covers, instrumentals and songs. Recorded entirely at Sound Peaks Audio House in Nelson BC, late at night. Maybe I'll scan the cover later and post it up here, it's kinda nice. Tracklist:

1 The Hammond Trick
2 Roll Again
3 Sunny Goodge Street (by Donovan)
4 One From the Farm
5 RTD (by Beck)
6 The Krux (by Arthur Lilliott & Jesse Lee)
7 Into Dust (by Mazzy Star, tasty saxophone by Ben Eurby)

Click HERE to get your copy, and thanks for checking it out.

Yo 4shared, it's all live instruments, so leave us alone.

Crate Kings 4: Classic - Remixed Joints from the Golden Era

The members of Crate Kings bring you a fourth installment of their series of beat mixes (or whatever you wanna call them). This one is the first non-instrumental. Instead, classic tracks were relieved of their original music and given a thorough reworking. Gems were plucked from over 2 decades of hip hop, recontextualized and reconceptualized, and reawesomeized, and then mixed together tenderly by Rafferty the DJ. You, the sophisticated consumer, get the FULL MUSICAL EXPERIENCE. The tracks:



So click your way over here to read a slightly different write-up, and find the download link. There's 3 choices!