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Saturday, May 3, 2014

B-side Cairo Nights, Fab 5 Freddy, Fab 5 Betty, Celluloid Electro Hotness

Debbie Harry protege' Fab 5 Freddy was active on the New York Hip Hop Scene in the same period that Blondie was blowing up.  In 1981 they in fact recorded a Christmas song together called Yuletide Throwdown which is majorly collectible and was released on green flexivinyl.  Furthermore he gets a shout-out on the rap in Rapture.  Which might be the only way people not on the underground scene would have ever heard of him.



Meanwhile Fab 5 Betty also known as Ann Boyle Is featured on the project B-side and in the seminal Electro/Punk combo platter called Time Zone along with Afrika Baaambata and Johnny Lydon of The Sex Pistols.  


So just like a lot of current rap music is meshing with EDM there was a lot of mixing of hip hop and electro and disco back in the day.  But back then it wasn't as blatantly commercial as it is now.  Good 
Times by Chic was of course the music behind the first huge rap song on the pop charts, Rapper's Delight in 1979.

It became the definitive roller disco song.


Produced by Material and featuring the vocals of Bernard Fowler and a cast of others B side was one of many collaborative releases on the seminal Celluloid label out of New York.




The sound still holds up today.  Check out the songs A lot to Give and Paris-Taxi they are probably my favorites.   TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK

3 comments:

Divine Light Control said...

Nice to know that I'm not the only one aware of B-Side. I'm lucky to have the original 'Cairo Nights' and I have always found that it was some terrific music. Also I'm wondering why she never was a great success.
Besides I always wanted to know her real name and what her life was all about.
Thank you for your great effort.

AJ said...

Always loved this album...Got the vinyl..nice to be able to get an mp3 copy....
Thank You.
Peace EveryTime
AJ

AJ-MACHETE said...

Thank you for sharing this hidden Celluloid gem. I wish the whole catalog could be re-released for those of us who either slept on these, or who, like me, didn't have the resources available to buy them all up before they went out of print. Another full collection I'd like to see re-released is the entire Malcolm McLaren/Art of Noise/World's Famous Supreme Team collection, including all the 12" singles and dubs. Back to B-Side: very cool to hear the album version of Change the Beat, finally! Thanks again.