Numero Group is one of the most important record labels on the planet today. If you've not heard of this label then you are seriously doing your ears a disservice. Digging through crates, garages, old record stores and just about anywhere else classic recordings might be buried this label painstakingly searches the country for the best music no one has ever heard of and then restores it to it's original like new condition and re-issues it for the world to hear. Covering just about every genre on the planet, the label has issued tons of classic soul, garage rock, power pop, breaks, and ephemera over 34+ albums, singles, and posters. They are truly awesome at what they do and every release is given an amount of tender loving care that it deserves. As a result of this, they've turned obscure records that five people have heard into works of art that the entire world needs to hear.
Here now, are a rundown of the latest group of releases from this essential label. There isn't a duff record in this bunch and you probably should just visit their website, plop down about $200 and buy every single one of these releases not because I said so but because they're just that good no matter how obscure and unheard of, any of these artists are. Good things are often found in the strangest places and the Numero Group proves that over and over again.
First up is the It's All POP!(Numero 024) compilation featuring the eight releases from Titan! Records. From 78-81 the label quietly amassed a stable of artists who recorded power pop that could quite easily have rivaled Elvis Costello or anything on the Stiff Records label and yet because of the fact that they were based in the Midwest no one east or west of the Mississippi ever heard any of these records. Armed with a truck load of melodic guitar work, plenty of piano, emotional singing, and choruses the size of the region itself, the eight bands that make up this compilation; Secrets*, Gary Charlson, Boys, JP McClain & the Intruders, Millionaire At Midnight, Arlis, Bobby Sky, and Scott McCarl should have all had huge hits in the early 80's. But, alas, being stuck in Missouri doesn't exactly help your cause when everything is happening either in New York, LA, or London. In any case, the double disc set that makes up this compilation is packed to the gills with simply stupendous pop music that should have crowded the airwaves with jumpy jaunty pop tunes that were dressed in skinny ties and Members Only jackets. This is the sound of rock and roll that was raised on bubble gum and the radio and nearly thirty years after their initial releases people from around the world can finally see that Missouri was quite the hot bed of musical activity.
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum comes the Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes(Numero 028) anthology which compiles seventeen rarely heard or seen singer/songwriter/folk musicians and allows them to strum their guts out all in one convenient location. While I generally can't stand this stuff there are some real gems scattered across this record which sound unbelievably good. As if to prove the point, former Buffalo Sabres' player Jim Schoenfeld strikes gold. His tune, "Before," is a haunting dirge that sounds like the coolest nightmare ever put to tape; it's like shoegazing 20 years before the genre was invented and clearly proves that there are diamonds in the rough no matter where you look. From there, there are a few other tunes that illustrate how prevalent and good folk music was thirty years ago. While nowadays it seems as though everyone with an acoustic guitar is a singer/songwriter, back then it seems as though having a huge heart and the songs to match were a pre-requisite. Richard Smyrnios', "As I Walk," is a multi-instrumental tune that features flutes and brings to mind spring breezes and time for meditation. It's a nice tune that offers so much more than just an acoustic guitar. And to some degree that's what most of Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes does, brings something more to the table than a bog standard folk tune. Packaged with mini-bios of each artist and the story of how the record came to be, listening to Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes is like a lesson in underground folk...just check out the Tucker Zimmerman story for a fine example of international musical intrigue.
Going even further back in time is Pisces and their album A Lovely Sight (Numero 29). Decked out in cowboy hats, top hats, and scuba gear this Illinois band took the template the Beatles created with Revolver and turned it on its head. Taking a psychedelic trip down the rock and roll highway the band created a magical world of folk-rock, and prog pop tunes that couldn't be more 60's if it tried. A Lovely Sightis a magic carpet ride of wide eyed suburban kids lost on Haight and Ashbury and completely off their heads. This is paisley pop before there was such a thing and so many of the songs teeter on the verge of self-destruction that it's amazing the record was ever completed. But here it is, in all it's glory and had Pisces actually gotten to San Francisco one can't help but wonder what would have happened. Trippy stuff that looks like the Bonzo Dog Doo Da Band and sounds like the Velvet Underground on magic mushrooms, Pisces were a band destined for big things but never quite got there. This is a band who were a bit ahead of the curve, pretty darn creative to boot and had no problem with putting female vocals, strange sounds, dead air, multi-part vocals, multi-tracked sounds and lord only knows what else to create an intriguing album of melodic psychedelic folk pop. Pisces are the best band you've never heard from Rockford, Illinois and probably ever will.
Getting funky for jesus is what Good God! Born Again Funk (Numero 30) is all about. Whether your Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, or Atheist, funk is the universal language of the groove and it's something that we can all agree on is good for the soul. The artists that make up Good God! Born Again Funk know this and bring it back to church in the name of the Lord. The eighteen tracks that make up this record are chock full of 70's funk, bell bottoms, wah wah guitars, fuzzed out basslines, and enough soul in their soul to find their way to heaven. This is one funky record that makes no bones about it's religion but is so darn groove oriented that whether or not your religious is irrelevant when getting down to this compilation. Good God! Born Again Funk gets started early on TL Barrett's, "Like A Ship," and brings it home with Justin Austin's "I'll Take Jesus for Mine," with the odd soulful ballad in between. If this record were put out on Stax in 1973 this would have sold by the truckload but as fate would have itt, these songs remained confined to the artists and churches that blessed them with their presence. This is the sound of soulful funk and if two things are apparent after listening to Good God! Born Again Funk it's that one, love is love no matter if its for your significant other or Jesus and two, you got to find a church that gets down like this record does. Essential stuff for everyone no matter what your belief system.
Wrapping up this epic quest of rare and reissued tuneage is Eccentric Beats and Breakswhich is essentially a bootleg of a bootleg of a reissue. Originally re-released then bootlegged by someone else and then bootlegged by Numero bootlegging their own recording, this classic instrumental breaks record is the very definition of "da funk." In fact, this record is so funky and packed tightly with so many grooves you can almost hear the samples jumping off of it and into like 50 or so Top 40 hip hop/big beat/dance tunes waiting to be finished. This record is an epic, filled with tunes that no one outside of the artists who made them have ever heard and that's what makes these grooves golden...they're so rare and so virginal they're just dying to be sampled or as the case were...bootlegged. Broken up into two sides or two tracks, Eccentric Beats and Breaksis the sort of record that would give crate diggers a heart attack and make someone like DJ Shadow lose his head...it's like stumbling upon a Picasso at a thrift store...that's how rare this stuff is. This is a unheard goldmine and it's cheesy cover hides the treasures that await you and your sampler once you crack it open. I'm not sure who any of the artists are, but the tracks are seriously fantastic instrumental break beat gold.
So there you have it, the latest crop of releases from one of the most important labels on the planet. Visit, www.numerogroup.com and order it all.
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