Among the Trees Instrumentals - Part Three

Happy Halloween to everyone! No tricks here, and it's your call on whether or not these are treats, but I do like instrumentals and Among the Trees has some good ones. So here is the third part of the instrumental series on this album. One more installment after this one and they'll all be out there.

Baba Oje

I'm Ignoring You

Pain Thangs

Among the Trees Instrumentals Part 2

All right, I kind of fell off track with posting the instrumentals from the deluxe version of Among the Trees- so here are four more.

Wag Your Tail

Calling All Ghetto Children

In The Sun

Among The Trees

Live on CNN

Sometimes you can outsmart yourself- I looked all over for this video and then it hit me that I should probably just search CNN for it- and here it is: http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/showbiz/2010/10/28/nr.arrested.development.cnn.html

Unfortunately it doesn't look like you can embed, but check it out. Great exposure for the crew! Speech actually talks about giving the gangster rap thing a try waaaaay back when, which is pretty cool.

Last Word on Strong

All right, I had a chance to listen to the online version of Strong, and to my untrained ear it appears that the mixes used for the online version match those used on the US physical version. So there are basically two versions of the album, one for the US market and one for Japan. Here is a look back at my original post done last week explaining the differences, in case you missed it!

I should also mention that I notice a lot of differences in "The World is Changing" now as well. The US mix seems a lot richer and fuller- if that makes any sense at all....

Thanks again to Christian for helping me put this to bed!

Beats From Speech's Vault

On Speech's debut album Speech, he had a song called "Freestyle #8 from Speech's Vault." (What happened to Freestyles #1 through #7? I guess they are still in the vault...) Anyway, at the end of the song, he mentions a special vinyl-only project called Beats From Speech's Vault. I remember looking for it at some point and not finding anything on it, and from that point I pretty much forgot all about it. Seemed like a project that didn't materialize, and that's fine, as it happens all the time in the entertainment world (so when does Dr. Dre's Detox come out again?).

But then I started this site, and a loyal reader asked me if I knew anything about it. Since I did not, I thought I would ask Mike from Vagabond, who was able to confirm that it did exist, but that it was on CD, not vinyl. But not only that, he would get the files to me.

So here they are! What we have is 9 tracks that Speech did. No vocals, just beats. It looks like the project morphed into a way to get some production work for Speech as one can see on the cover if the photo I took was any good. To be honest, I'm not sure if it worked as none of the tracks sound familiar to me and I don't see anything out there. It should have worked as I do like many of the instrumentals here, specifically some of the later numbers. It's a shame that after all of the outstanding work Speech did producing AD and producing Gumbo that people weren't coming to him for beats, but that was the climate at the time during the No Limit Records era. Without further adieu, here are the Beats. There aren't any track names so I will improvise and come up with my own creative names :)

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Guess my names aren't so creative.... Finding this little project has been a really nice upshot to doing this blog, so again, I want to thank Mike for all of his help with it!

Also, I want to apologize for not getting this in a zip file. I have a lot to learn still...

Update on The AD Discography

A few weeks ago, when I wrote about AD's discography, I made a comment that it was pretty straightforward and that you didn't see the big variations between US and "import" versions. Oops! I have since learned that there are actually quite a few various albums out there, so let's break it down:

1992: 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of... - In the US, this was released in two different pressings- the first one did not have the "People Everyday" Metamorphosis Remix tacked on to the end while later pressings did. My copy did not have that remix, and my pursuit of a copy that did is what re-introduced me to Arrested Development! There is also a version in Japan that contained a bonus disc with "Revolution" as well as two remixes of "People Everyday" and "Tennessee." We will have more on that version later.

1993: Unplugged - There is an import version of this, which apparently includes a remix of "Revolution." The cassette version contains instrumentals of "Time," "Fishin 4 Religion" and "U" while the CD version does not (not sure why as there is time available for some of that on the CD). I might have the tape version somewhere still at my mom's house, but it could be long gone too.

Amazon actually shows that this was remastered in 2003 and shows the cover with a slightly different color for the AD logo, so I'm not sure what that's all about....

1994: Zingalamaduni - US Pop #55, US R&B #20 - From what I can tell, there are two different import versions of this. One features "Eggbeaters" as a bonus track, and another features that song as well as "Ease My Mind (Premier's Remix)" and "United Front (Noise In My Attic Remix)."

2000: Da Feelin' - Just the one version of this as far as I can tell, which was released in Japan only.

2002: Heroes of the Harvest - There are two versions of this, but as far as I know the only differences are the covers. The Japanese cover is really odd while the US cover that was released through Vagabond is more AD's style. I don't own the Japanese version but as far as I know the contents are the same.





2004: Among The Trees - As best as I can tell there are three versions of this one- the original Japanese version has a different cover and two bonus tracks- live versions of "People Everyday" and "Tennessee." Then there is the version you can find at the Vagabond site, and a "deluxe" version that contains two bonus remixes of "Honeymoon Day" and a disc of instrumentals from the album, which we covered here. I still need to get more of those instrumentals up.

2006: Since The Last Time - Now on this one, I thought there was only one version of it available. And I would be wrong. There is the standard version and from what I can tell, two "deluxe versions." One was released in Australia and has 10 remixes, and one apparently was released in South Korea and contains 3 live songs (the three big hits from the first album) and 3 remixes (which were also on the Australian version). We will have much more on this one later!

2009: Strong - There are of course two versions of this one with different songs on each, which we covered here.

So as you can see, there are a ton of variants out there in the AD world, just like Speech's discography!

AD Live on CNN Tomorrow

Check out the news from AD's page. I'll have to set my, ummmm, VCR (yes, I still use a VCR!):

TUNE IN TOMORROW 9AM
(Thursday Oct. 28) Arrested Development Rocks new song, "GREENER" live on CNN with anchor Kyra Phillips at 9 a.m. (Eastern)

Da Feelin' - Arrested Development

Da Feelin: Even LL Cool J would call this one a comeback. After 6 or so years apart, four of the original members of AD reunited and recorded a 7-song EP that was released exclusively in Japan. It went out of print some time ago although it can still be found at various prices used.

To me, this is the start of the second of three phases of Arrested Development- you had the first phase that broke up in 1995, the second phase that starts here that includes the four surviving members of Speech, Rasa Don, Eshe, and Baba Oje, and then the third phase that begins with Among the Trees as they start to add in new members. That phase is still going, ahem, "Strong," today.

I think it would be fair to say that this EP has been overlooked by most AD fans. It's pretty tough to find, and if you glance at the track listing, three of the songs are featured on Heroes of the Harvest, so it would be easy to think "well, they took the best songs, used them again, and left the lesser songs alone." But is this the case? Not necessarily. Let's take a look track-by-track.

1. If Dey Ask - This one is on Heroes of the Harvest, but in a somewhat shorter version minus an entire verse of Speech's. Great song and one of the first times we hear Rasa Don rap on a song. This version is non-essential if you have Heroes, but still, I like to check out alternate mixes and so forth so this is nice to have.

2. Fame - This is a pretty good song. It does a nice job of switching up the beat during the second verse so that it doesn't get too boring. Eshe grabs the mic and raps for the first time on an AD cut on this one. This won't blow anyone away, but it's a nice song.

3. Fire - To me, "Fire" is kind of one of the gems on this one as far as rarely heard songs. Features guest artists Show & Amari with Rasa Don. A rare AD song that does not feature Speech on lead vocals- I only hear him doing a background vocal during the hook.

4. Not Worthy - This might be the song that sounds the most like AD's previous work in my opinion. I really like this song, so this would be the other rarely heard "gem."

5. On Conscious - This is the same version on Heroes. Kind of a spoken-word track if you're not familiar with it. Speech is great on this.

6. Conditional Love (Original Version) - "Conditional Love" was remixed for Heroes of the Harvest. One thing I can't wrap my mind around is this is labeled the original version on the package yet it came out well before Heroes of the Harvest (which featured the "Pocket Monstas" version), so did they know it was going to be remixed down the road? Or was it released on a single as well? The chicken or the egg? I really don't know much about this Da Feelin' project.....

7. Fayetteville Experience - The album closer. This is a pretty mellow rap song describing Speech's life in Fayetteville basically. A really good song that grows on you, in my opinion.

Another note on this album is that Ike "Za" Williams plays the bass on four songs, and he would go on to become a full-fledged member of Arrested Development by the time Among the Trees was recorded.

As far as the EP as a whole, it's a good effort that lets the world know AD is back- if you looked hard enough. Bigger and better things would be on the way, beginning with Heroes of the Harvest, but it's a good listen for AD fans. The liner notes and packaging are done really well also, and it seems that they had pretty lengthy photo sessions for this release as there are a ton of pictures included, as well as full credits, lyrics, and thank yous.

To wrap up, here are some of the songs that did not appear elsewhere. See what you think if you have not had a chance to hear them before:

Fame

Fire

Not Worthy

Fayetteville Experience

AD Live on Arsenio - Part Two

For some reason the person who posted this does not allow embedding- so you'll have to click the link to see it. But here is an awesome version of "United Front" from the Arsenio Hall Show. Great work all around on this one.

And here's a link to their first performance on Arsenio, which was posted here earlier. Good stuff! To the side you can check out one of Arsenio's more bizarre guests- Jason from Friday the 13th fame....

A Trip in the DeLorean...

Here's a look back at an article from 1993 that shows where Arrested Development was as a group at that time. Pretty cool to look back and see how things were with the crew back then. This is from the November 1993 issue of Ebony magazine. Here's a choice quote on the formation of the group:

Arrested Development was started in 1988 by Speech and Headliner (born Tim Barnwell), the band's self-described "turntable instrumentalist," while they were both students at Atlanta's Art Institute. As a rap duo, they performed boastful, profanity-filled, music in small clubs in Gainesville and Douglasville, Ga. After hearing Public Enemy's militant song, "Rebel Without a Pause," Speech and Headliner changed their musical focus and dropped the negative lyrics for more politically tinged songs.

Still hard to imagine Speech up there cussing and so forth! And yes, the picture above is Kobe Bryant getting out of a DeLorean.... It just occurred to me that this post is scheduled to go up the same day the Back to the Future series is released on Blu Ray. Don't have a Blu Ray player yet so I'll be sitting that out, but that was completely unintentional....

Redemption Song

To follow-up on yesterday's post on "Clocks In Sync With Mine," here is the Japanese mix of "Redemption Song." This one is a little different from the US version found on Hoopla. It can also be found on the Japanese release of Spiritual People. Either way, you can't go wrong with either version, although I think my favorite version is the live version included on Speech's Best.

And again, I'd like to thank Christian for sending this my way and bringing to my attention that this is a different mix. It's so easy to tangle this stuff together sometimes!

Clocks in Sync With Mine - Speech

"Clocks in Sync With Mine" is one of my favorite Speech songs, which is why I took the name of this blog from the first line of the song. It's just something that always stuck out to me. It's just a great song.

Well, I've mentioned before that I'm kind of on the fence on remixes- but here's one I really like: the "808 Poppy Mix" of "Clocks in Sync With Mine".

And that's followed by "Put You On," which uses the same beat as the "Poppy" remix but is a posse rap cut featuring Speech. Pretty cool find and I had no idea it was out there. And then there's the "Urban Cricket Mix" of "Clocks in Sync With Mine," which is very similar but has more bass in it. These are all from the single which of course came off the album Hoopla.

Hope you enjoy these remixes- they're pretty hard to come by and I want to thank Christian for getting them my way!

Extended Revolution Tracks- Day Eight

Here we are, on the last song of Extended Revolution: the "Hip Hop Drum Attack" remix of "Mr. Wendal." This one mixes in a little bit of Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" and somehow works!

Speech - Universal Music (Remix)

Here's a video I've never seen before:

Speech has worked with DJ Hasebe quite a bit, including having him remix "The World Is Changing" from Strong. Pretty cool video, I think!

The Life Music Remixes

Life Music Remixes is the other half of the two recent online-only releases on the Vagabond site. This compilation remixes tracks from a variety of recent albums. I have a love-hate relationship with remixes- on one hand when you've played a certain song to death from a group you love, it's a way to listen to it with a fresh perspective. On the other hand, you risk taking a good or great song and making it worse- of course, the opposite holds true. For instance, the album version of "People Everyday" is really good, but you'd be hard-pressed to say the remixed version wasn't better.

So Authentic (Tall Boy Remix) [3:06] - This is a song from the Japanese version of Strong. Nice remix to a great song.

Bloody (Fraternal Twins Remix) [3:31] - Another funny remix name. This remix is fine, but to me, the original is so perfect that you almost don't even want to bother remixing it.

Any Tree But That (Sebmaestria Remix) [3:15] - I like this one too. I like the original but didn't love it, and I like this one as well.

Caught Me (Metamorphosis Remix) [4:13] - Metamorphosis Remix is a remix title that has been used quite a few times in the AD catalog, most famously with the afore mentioned "People Everyday." This is a really good remix. I think I prefer this to the album version on "Since the Last Time."

Miracles (S*A*M* REMIX) [3:44] - I'm a big fan of the original, and truth be told this remix, while fine taken on it's own, just makes me want to listen to the original! We'll see how I feel about the next remix of "Miracles."

Miracles (Jazzed Out Remix) [3:37] - Yeah, I pretty much feel the same way about this one as the previous remix- probably like this one a little more actually. Fine for what it is, but I'll take the original.

The Grown Folks Table (Tall Boy Remix) [4:29] - The title song from Speech's last album, this is my least favorite remix on here. Just kind of chops up the beat, inserts some random vocals from it, and leaves out the verses. Sorry Tall Boy!

I Alone (Tall Boy Remix) [3:15] - This one is better- works more like an instrumental then a remix.

InnerCity (Metamorphosis Remix) [2:42] - I think this one has been floating around for a little bit. Another "Metamorphosis" remix and not a bad one either.

Between the two recent online releases, I prefer Unreleased Jewels and think most Speech fans would. Having new music in my eyes is superior to remixes, although I don't regret checking out the remixes and the package goes for just $4.99 so it's not a big investment- I mean, that's a reasonable price. Either way, it's great that these projects have been made available to us Speech and AD fans, and hopefully this will prove to be a solid way to release music!

Extended Revolution Tracks- Day Seven

All right, we are at the next to the last song on Extended Revolution- the "Back to Roots" mix of "Tennessee." This one is much better then the previous remix, in my opinion.

Unreleased Jewels- Speech

Unreleased Jewels is a great little project for us Speech fans. For those not aware, this is a fairly recent online release on the Vagabond Records site of some unreleased (obviously) songs from Speech over the years. I love that this kind of stuff is being made available to us instead of rotting and collecting dust.

Personally, I always enjoy hearing songs that were good songs, but might not have fit in with a particular album. And I think an artist can sometimes have the worst view of a song because they're too close to it- for instance, Chuck D has told a story that he was going to leave "Don't Believe the Hype" on the cutting room floor until DMC basically forced him to put it out. (Note: I love Public Enemy, so I apologize for the constant interjections here with PE facts and trivia!)

So with that in mind, let's take a look at Unreleased Jewels and see what Speech left on the cutting room floor with these 12 songs. According to the song information on itunes, most of these songs were recorded for the Grown Folks Table album:

1. Let It Go [3:21] - This song really starts the collection off right. Really good song about moving past some issues to push a relationship forward.

2. This Christmas Eve & Eve's Surprise (reprise) [7:15] - Now when I re-burn this album, I'm going to move this one to the last song. It's not necessarily bad, but I'm not really a fan of listening to Christmas music until Christmas. This isn't really Jingle Bells, Ho-ho-ho type stuff, but nonetheless I would move it back. Also, the quality on this song is noticeably less than the other songs, at least for the first half. It also sounds like Travie McCoy from Gym Class Heroes is featured on the first half, but I could be way wrong. All of that said, this isn't a bad song. The Reprise slows the song down with an acoustic vibe.

3. Amazing [3:45] - This is a nice, mellow song.

4. Loss for Words [1:35] - This is more of a demo than a full song, but it seems to me that Speech was working on a pretty good one.

5. Please Don't Let Go [4:24] - Now here is an AD song. This actually popped up on the Since the Last Time mixtape, but here it is without any DJ chatter over it. I really like this song and think it would've worked very well on Since the Last Time. Nice upbeat song in the classic AD fashion. Speech also makes clear his opinions on sharing music on the internet in the first verse- he's all for it. The chorus states that "we produce those songs that hit your spirit and mental, so please don't let go." I agree!

6. The Root of all kinds of Evil (The N***** Word debate) [5:41] - This song seems to be Speech's take on the proposed title of Nas's latest album, among others uses of that infamous word. I'm a Nas fan, but I'm still not sure if he was going for shock value with that title or trying to make a statement. Either way, Speech probably dealt more effectively with the debate over the word way back on "People Everyday" then Nas was able to pull off on that album, although overall I did like it. Anyway, this is a really good song, and Speech makes some great points without being preachy.

7. Worth It [3:00] - Another great Speech song. It's becoming clear that there are some really nice songs on here, or "gems" if you prefer :)

8. The Kingdom of Illness [3:49] - This is yet another great Speech song- this one is more of a hip-hop track then some of the others. The first verse is about growing up among racism, and if it's all true then it's pretty depressing.

9. Gather You Up (Matthew 23:37 - message to the lost tribe ) [3:46] - Obvious from the title, this is a heavily religious song and is really good.

10. Follow Me [2:40] - This is another hip-hop song with a strong religious theme. And, yes, it is another good one! It does cut off a little abruptly.

11. Where U From [2:42] - This is a hip-hop song about OutKast. Kind of has more of a mainstream feel then most Speech songs, but it works very well. With better mastering, would probably hit pretty hard in a good system.

12. My Protest (U Thought I Was A Hippie?) [3:53] - Closes the album with Speech basically defending him against the allegation that he's "soft."

In a nutshell, this package is very worthy of being called "Gems." If you enjoyed Grown Folks Table, then this really works well as a second disc to that package. Highly recommended. According to the Vagabond store, this will only be available for a limited time, so pick it up today!

To finish up, I would be all for seeing this released in a hard copy format as I still believe you get the best sound on a disc, but I'm just happy the songs are available in any format. We'll take a look at the second online release that came out around the same time, The Life Music Remixes, down the road.

Extended Revolution Tracks- Day Six

On to day six, and we'll skip the "Revolution" remix, as we covered the "Another Perspective" version already. Which brings us to the "Maroon Mix" of "People Everyday." As mentioned, I prefer the well known remix of this that was released as a single, but this one is not without it's charm.

Found that photo above at a nice little blog called Musical Musings of a Tiny Rager that has a cool review on a fairly recent AD concert. Sounds like a great show- of course!

A Beautiful Morning

Maybe I should save this one for a Monday morning, when we need it. Happy Friday to everyone- to celebrate, here's a Speech cover of the classic song by "The Rascals," "A Beautiful Morning." This was found on the soundtrack to the movie Warriors of Virtue which looks like some crazy stuff like The Dark Crystal or something. Doesn't look it's rated too highly on imdb, but who cares- it gave us a new Speech song, so good enough for me! I think everyone will enjoy his version of this song.

On a related note, I should have a post up sometime soon breaking down all of the songs featured on soundtracks by both Arrested Development and Speech- to the best of my ability anyway!

Extended Revolution Tracks- Day Five

All right, here we are at day five and we're at my favorite track off of Extended Revolution. "Fishin' for Relgion" might be my favorite song they've ever done, and I really like this remix as well. No fancy names for this one, just "Remix."

Indigo Blume

You know, I buy my two-year old daughter a lot of books and read to her quite a bit, and what do I have to show for it? Oh sure, she has a pretty good vocabulary for someone her age and she seems to enjoy it, but other than that, what's in it for me?

Well, for a change, there will be a new Speech song in it for me! Saw a post about a book called Indigo Blume and the Garden City on Speech's facebook so I looked into it a little bit and it says there is a four-track CD featuring Speech music on it, specifically a song called "I'm Different." For $15 with shipping included, that's not too bad as it looks like a nice, colorful book that my daughter will enjoy and I get a new Speech song, so hey. We'll have more on this later as it is not due to ship until mid-November. Until then, check it out: Indigo Blume. I'll try to find out what else is included on the CD since that is what Speech fans will be interested in.

Extended Revolution Tracks- Day Four

Day four of Extended Revolution, and here is the "Noises in my Attic" remix of "United Front." This is another nice remix from this collection. Good to see some Zingalamaduni songs getting some love. Usually when you have noises in your attic, it means raccoons, but luckily this doesn't sound like that at all....

Among the Trees Deluxe Edition

I love CD stores- at least, the ones that are left. There's just something about going in and having no idea about what you are going to find- especially if they sell used CDs. Granted, a lot of the fun has been taken out of going to CD stores because there really aren't many surprises in these days of the internet- in terms of new releases. It used to be that you'd get caught off guard by some albums if you somehow missed the single or the video. Now, we generally know months and months in advance when something is coming out and when it finally does, we're almost sick of hearing about it and the thrill is gone.

But I digress. Back to the point, you never know when a surprise can be waiting for you. Which brings me to Among the Trees. As mentioned before, it is one of my favorite AD albums and probably second only to the debut. Number one, it hit me at exactly the right time when I was really getting fed up with the rap music that was out there in the current scene and I thought Arrested Development was a group that made two great albums and split up. So anyway, I already had the album and played it to the point where my original copy is SUBARed. Yes, scratched up beyond all recognition. Still not sure what happened there as I'm pretty careful about those sorts of things, but I was in need of a new copy at some point.

Which brings me to Drastic Plastic, a little record store here in Omaha in an area called the Old Market. Kind of a trendy, Bohemian area of town. One of two record stores in that area and by far my least favorite of the two, but we were down there one day so I stopped in and took a look at the very small hip hop section and found this.

A two-disc set of Among the Trees- two remixes (Honeymoon Day, shared already here) not on my copy along with a disc of the instrumentals from the album. Say what? I had never even heard of this. Now for those of you in Germany and maybe elsewhere (the packaging claims it was made in Germany in 2004), you're probably well aware of this, but to me, it was a surprise. The price was kind of high so I did waver a bit, but my wife, correctly, pointed out that I would just come back if I didn't buy it then, so yep, I bought it. Among the Trees really has some great and diverse instrumentals, so it was definitely worth the purchase.

So let's take a look at a few of those instrumentals for those interested. We'll start with the first few and see if anyone wants more:

A Lotta Things To Do
Esmeralda
Luxury
Honeymoon Day

Extended Revolution Tracks- Day Three

Moving on to day three, here is track four of Extended Revolution: the "Another Perspective" mix of "Ease My Mind." This is a nice, laid back remix to a nice, laid back song.

A while back, we also had the DJ Premier mix, in case you missed it.

STRONG

I got a package in the mail, the other day, I opened and read it, it said they were Arrested Development..... (OK, that's an awful joke, even by my standards, from one of my favorite Chuck D verses of all time).

So yeah, I got my copy of the US version of Strong in the mail yesterday and I had a chance to listen to it quite a bit. As mentioned before, this version features new "mix-downs" and some tracks that were not on the Japanese version.

I really noticed the new mix downs on the songs "Haters", "We Rad We Doin' It", and "La La La". There are subtle differences throughout, but it really stands out- to me- on those three songs in particular. I really like the new mix of "Haters" compared to the other version, and I think I prefer the mix of "We Rad We Doin' It" on the Japanese version. "La La La" I could go either way on, I like them both about equally. Now I'm not sure how these mixes compare to those available for download- maybe I will download a song to give one a listen and see. As far as this article is concerned, I am comparing the US versions to the Japanese versions in this case.

Speaking of "We Rad We Doin' It," I really thought that was a typo when I ordered my copy of Strong from CD Japan a year or so ago- it seemed like a bad translation to me along the lines of "all your base belong to us". But I love that song! And the title works!

I really like having CD quality versions of "Trends", "Freedom," and "Africa We Thank Ya." "Trends" in particular stands out, such a great song. As far as the packaging goes, they are very similar, but the US version is definitely more user friendly- and actually, more earth friendly as there is no plastic used at all.

No matter how you slice it, you have a great Arrested Development album and that's no small thing. However, it does delete a few tracks from the Japanese version, which is too bad as I really liked a couple of those songs. However, here are some youtube links to a few of those songs, so that you're not missing out if you get the US version.

Here is "So Authentic"

"Granola Girl"

"World is a Friendly Place"

Esmeralda Remixes

Here's a little project from Speech that I kind of forgot about. As I recall, there was a contest to have someone produce a remix for "Esmeralda," a song that debuted on Among the Trees and was later remixed a little bit for The Vagabond album. It was then made available on itunes, and still is. The remixes are pretty good- the first one (the "Play it Safe" remix) is the one from The Vagabond and the others ("The Ill Factor" remix and the "Z-Bonics and 4-Track Mind" Remix) are the "fan" mixes. The "Ill Factor" remix kind of has a Q-Tip vibe to it.

And while we're at it, here's the video (which happens to be the "Play It Safe" remix). Again, another creative Speech video that's funny and gives visuals to some of the lyrics in the background- check out the ducks! Brings back bad memories of watching that awful Howard the Duck movie, only this is actually funny....

Extended Revolution Tracks- Day Two

All right, for day two of our series on Extended Revolution we will skip to track 3- reason being is that if you are an AD fan, you've likely had the "Metamorphosis Mix" of "People Everyday" for years and years. So let's move on to track 3, which is the "Pirate Radio" mix of "Tennessee." I'm not a huge fan of this mix, mainly because you have some scratching that replays certain bars and it sounds like the track is skipping. That said, here it is anyway, see what you think.

BTW when I first wrote about this album, it was going for about $20 used on Amazon. Now I see it's up to $39.87. Wow.

Strong: US vs. the World

For the most part, it's pretty easy to break down the differences between the US versions and the import versions of Arrested Development's albums- unlike Speech at times! They either have a couple bonus tracks or there aren't any differences. We'll get into all of the albums at some point, but with the recent release of Strong in the US, I thought it would be a good idea to break down the differences on their latest release. Now keep in mind I am going under the assumption that the US version will match the online version now available- I could be wrong and I'll find out more when my copy arrives.

Anyway, to make it simple we will simply post the tracklists with some thoughts on the different songs on each release. The songs in bold are exclusive to that version. I bought the album version when it came out (for a ridiculous shipping fee from Japan, but it was worth it!) so I'm not real familiar with the US version as I just purchased the songs I didn't have when they dropped.

US Version

1. Bloody
2. Free - Cool song that sounds a lot like "Say Hey (I Love You)" by Michael Franti and Spearhead.
3. Let Your Voice Be Heard
4. The Trends- Another great song- when I heard it on youtube, I was begging for this to show up on the US release.
5. Haters
6. Any Tree But That
7. Greener
8. Too Much Woman For Ya
9. La La La
10. We Rad We Doin' It
11. The World Is Changing
12. Africa We Thank Yah - Another really good song. I love the sounds of African music so this is a nice tune.

Japan version:

1. Haters
2. Too Much Woman For Ya
3. The World Is Changing
4. La La La
5. Let Your Voice Be Heard
6. Bloody
7. Greener
8. The World Is A Friendly Place- I'm surprised this isn't on the US release as it's really catchy and uplifting. Takes aim at the idea that the rest of the world is a dump or in Speech's world, "toilet bowl".
9. Any Tree But That
10. We Rad We Doin' It
11. So Authentic- Wow, I'm really shocked this one isn't on there. Love this song. I mean, I think this one was a classic.
12. Granola Girl This is a different vibe from AD but I like it, although I'm not really an Auto-tune fan and it's a little jarring on an AD album. Still, you judge it for what it is and not what you think it should be, and it's good. Rasa Don and One Love handle the vocals on this one, so it's a rare Speech-less AD song. A video for the song appears below.
13. A Truce- This certainly isn't a bad song and I like it, but I would definitely go with "The Trends" or "Africa We Thank Yah" over it.
14. The World Is changing (DJ Hasebe Remix)- Pretty good remix of the song, adds in some different sounds and other elements. A really well done remix and kind of brings the release full circle as a coda.

There are a few unreleased songs for various reasons (none of which appear to be quality issues) from the AD youtube page that were covered here.

When I get my hard copy of the US release, featuring new mix-downs, I will be sure to post my thoughts. I'm old school, I just can not dig online versions in the same way that I can a CD with artwork, liner notes, and so forth.

Extended Revolution Tracks- Day One

As promised, let's start putting out some of the remixes from Extended Revolution. And we'll start from the beginning- here is the "Perfecto Mix" of "Mr. Wendal." I do like this remix despite being a "club-type" remix, which I'm usually not a big fan of. Anyway, enjoy!

Get Well Baba Oje

I just saw that founding Arrested Development member and elder Baba Oje was hospitalized with a stroke, so here is a wish for his speedy recovery. Here are more details.

Honeymoon Day- Remixes

Here are a couple of remixes of "Honeymoon Day" that can be found on one of the international editions of Among the Trees (more on this later) as well as the single. Good versions of a great song! With kind of funny names to boot. Some day I will have to compile a list of the different remix titles on AD songs....

Jiggy Joint Radio Mix

Jiggy Joint Club Mix

I'm Intercontinental When I Eat French Toast....

I don't know why but I love that Beasties Boys line....

Anyway, just wanted to take a quick second to recognize some more countries that have been represented by stopping in and checking out Highway 85.

Hello to everyone who has checked us out from Barbados, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, and Jamaica, as well as another hello to everyone from Brazil, Japan, Singapore, Denmark, the UK, Canada, and Germany, as well as the US of course. Thanks for stopping in!

Is it Live?

When it comes to live AD albums on CD, you really only have two choices: Raw and Live, which can be found on the official site (for only $6.99!) or another album called Instant Live: Boston, MA 7/25/04. Sure, there are a couple other options out there (Unplugged and the Tokyo 1994 project), but when it comes to basically the current incarnation of the group, which happens to be the best live option in my opinion, then those are your choices.


Raw and Live is the official AD project, and it is excellent. Most of the material is from the first two studio albums, but you've also got a couple of cuts from Heroes of the Harvest ("In the South" and "Music & Life") as well as a couple of Speech solo songs ("Dang Diggy Dang" and "Redemption Song") which really add to the collection. You can not go wrong with this set. Most of it was recorded in Boulder, Colorado in 2003, but at some point things move to San Francisco towards the end of the set. Not sure what the story is there, but "Mama's Always on Stage" and "People Everyday" reference San Fran. The audience doesn't boo, so it's safe to say Speech wasn't confused about what city he was in :)


Instant Live albums were a pretty clever idea- I believe the way it worked was that after watching a concert, you had the option to buy that concert on CD as you left the show. These shows were also sold online by a company called Newbury Comics. It looks like a number of different artists gave it a shot (Kiss, George Clinton), and AD had a live show from Boston in July of 2004 recorded and released in this manner.

I'm still not sure how I ran across this, but since that time it has found it's way to amazon- I think I was looking for upcoming concert dates when I happened to come across it. Anyway, I was on the fence on whether or not to buy it as there was not a track listing shown with it at the time, so I wasn't sure what I was getting. But, of course, I went ahead and picked it up.

And I'm glad I did, because number one, I am a ridiculous completist, and number two, there were quite a few songs included that did not appear on Raw and Live. As this performance took place after Among the Trees, "Nighttime Demons" and "Baba Oje is the Oldest One" both appear. "Raining Revolution" is also heard here, and that's missing from Raw and Live. The live version is outstanding. I mean, it's worth purchasing for that one song alone if you're a fan, and if you're reading this you likely are.

Of course, you get variations between both concerts- they're not the Chuck E Cheese robots or the Rockafire Explosion, so there are differences each time they perform. One minor drawback on Instant Live, and this is petty, but after "Fishin' for Religion" you can hear the band go into "Dawn of the Dreads," but for some reason it gets cut off and the recording moves on to the next song. Not sure what happened there.

Here's the track listing from Instant Live:

Disc: 1
1. Give A Man A Fish
2. Fishin' For Religion
3. Sly Jam Session
4. Ease My Mind
5. Ease My Mind (cont.)
6. Africa's Inside Me
7. Tennessee
8. Natural
9. Redemption Song
10. Redemption Song (cont.) (this is an instrumental "jam session" so to speak that leads into Raining)
11. Raining Revolution
12. Revolution
Disc: 2
1. Music Life
2. Nighttime Demons
3. Baba Oje
4. Mr. Wendal
5. Za Solo
6. Mama's Always On Stage
7. People Everyday

So, which one to buy? Well, of course, it's your call. Raw and Live is found cheaper on the site if price is an issue. I like having both, but it basically depends on which of the newer songs you would prefer having and if you'd rather hear "Dawn of the Dreads" live (then buy Raw and Live) or "Raining Revolution" (Instant Live is your choice).

HipHop DX Interview from June

I seem to say this a lot- but here is another great interview with Speech. The thing about Speech is you don't get canned, cliched answers with him, so almost every interview you see is thoughtful with interesting answers. This one is no different. Here's a good question-and-answer regarding one of the songs on the US version of Strong:

DX: And it seems like you’re keeping that sonic balance going ‘cause that joint, “The Trends,” from the new Arrested Development album, that sounds like one of those classic ‘90s maxi-single [remixes].
Speech: That’s literally – ‘cause I’m the producer of that track – that’s literally what I was going for. Yeah, I just, I like that sound. I feel like a lot of the new Hip Hop heads that’s out now, some of ‘em weren’t born, or were just born, when that era was starting, and I feel like it’s good to just bring that [feel back]. There was a certain type of free, feel-good vibe back in those days with some of the tracks that came out, and I wanted to bring that back with that song, with “Trends.”

Here's the rest of the article.

AD Live In London

Since AD is over in the UK right now, it seems like a good time for a video from a previous concert there. I'm assuming this was done shortly after the reunion based on Speech's comments at the start, but I dunno. It is in front of a massive crowd too. Anyway, this is well shot and I can never hear enough of "Dawn of the Dreads."

The Samples

The other day I posted an image of what I thought was the album cover of "3 Years, 5 Months, And 2 Days In The Life Of..." However, on further inspection there was some additional writing added to the cover: "Hip Hop Is Read Presents" and "The Samples." So clearly I am blind. I looked it up and came across this fantastic post on the Hip Hop Is Read blog: The Samples. The file at that site includes all of the songs that were sampled to create "3 Years" and should be a fascinating listen. A word of warning though, the download link was pretty slow this morning.....

The Prince song sampled here, "Alphabet Street," will have to settle for second on my favorite Prince sample list though- a few years ago I was listening to a Prince album and heard him screaming, I couldn't believe that I recognized the sound from House of Pain's "Jump Around." I thought it was some kind of whistle all of those years: House of Pain sample. Although now it's actually unclear if it was a saxophone sample or Prince- hard to tell, which actually makes it even more mind blowing. Pretty bizarre! I won't give away what exactly was sampled for "Tennessee" from "Alphabet Street" either, you'll have to listen for yourself. :)

(Note: I swore I posted this a while back on 9-26, but I was looking at something else and noticed this was still in "edit mode" and I don't see it anywhere on the site. So my apologies if this is a double post.)

The Speech Discography

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the second installment of our discography series. We previously covered Arrested Development's output, so it follows that it's time to cover Speech's. Speech's albums include seven "original" albums (two with alternate US versions), four compilations of his work, and a remix album. Hopefully by the end of this, we will have made sense of it all....
THE ALBUMS

Speech (1996) - The debut solo album from Speech. Like most, I wasn't really sure what to expect with this album- was it going to be basically another Arrested Development album? Would it be completely different? The answer was of course that it lied somewhere in between, but it's very much a Speech solo album. There is a lot to like about this album, and I do like it. A lot of my favorite Speech songs are on this record- "Poor Little Music Boy," "If I Was You", and "Filled With Real" And how appropriate is "If U Think the System's Working (Ask Somebody Who Ain't?)" right now? So a very solid record that stands up. But there would be much more to come from Speech.

The international version features two bonus tracks and was covered here.

Hoopla aka 1998 Hoopla (1998 Japan/1999 US) - We've been over the two versions of this album as well. Another very solid Speech album, with more classic Speech songs. The title for this blog came from the Intro and "Clocks In Sync With Mine," which really starts the album off well. "Slave of it All" is probably my favorite song from the album.

Spiritual People (2000 Japan/2002 US) Again, we've been over the two versions of this one. In either form, you've got a classic Speech record!

Down South Produckshuns (2002) This just might be my favorite Speech album. Released in Japan only, although it can be found on itunes domestically.

Peechy (2003) If Down South isn't my favorite Speech album, then Peechy is. Released primarily in Japan, and also available on the official site.

The Grown Folks Table (2009) - Before starting this article, I really had no idea it had been six years between Speech albums. Now it's not like he wasn't busy as we saw a number of Arrested Development albums and Speech compilations during that time, but still, I was surprised. Anyway, this is a really good album that expanded his sound while staying in the same vein. Another album released primarily in Japan, and also available on the official site.

Compilations:
Disciples of a Lyrical Rebellion (Speech's Favs) (2000) - We've covered this one before- this is made up of songs from the first two Arrested Development albums, the first two Speech albums, and a few new songs and skits.

Freedom: Speech Remix Tracks (2000) - This is a little tough to find- and pricey. It is made up of seven remixes from the first two Speech albums. This will be covered in greater depth later on.

Speech's Best (2003) - This is my personal favorite of the various Speech compilations out there, because it features nine live songs not found anywhere else. The versions of "Poor Little Music Boy" and "If I Was You" are far superior to their album counterparts in my opinion- and they were already great songs, so that is saying something. Even if you have all the albums, the live songs make this a must purchase. Reasonably priced for a double-disc set as well. The only downside is that other than a "hidden track" on disc one and the live songs, the first album is not represented here. But seeing as the live tracks from that album are better than the studio versions, it's not really a problem. I would have liked to have heard the live version of "Like Marvin Gaye Said (What's Going On)" that can be heard starting at one point during the live portion, but such is life.

Love Life Music (2005) - This compilation was released in Japan and can also be found on Speech's website. Features songs from the first five albums and a live version of "Redemption Song" that I believe is exclusive to this album. Also features "Across the Universe," a Beatles cover that would later appear on The Vagabond. We'll look at this further in depth later on.

The Vagabond (2005) - Most people would categorize this as a solo album, and if you are only exposed to Speech's US retail output, then I could see your point. But if you have the material from Japan and the website, then I think it's easy to chalk this up as a compilation. Features material from Down South, Peechy, and a remixed version of "Esmeralda" from Among the Trees. The only new song on this release is "What You Give" featuring Eshe of AD, and it's a nice hip-hop song. I bought this used and ended up with a promo copy that people aren't supposed to resale (shame, shame!), so I recently bought the retail version as I am really that much of a completist. Hey, the cover wasn't the digipack that you're supposed to have, just a plain label! It's a sickness....

Anyway, hope you found this useful if you have just some of the albums or even if you own all of them. It can be a little hard to keep it all straight, that's for sure!

Purplebrown

Rasa Don posted a new mixtape today that you can listen to for free here. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but check it out. I really enjoyed the song he did with fellow AD member One Love and Illicit called "Hands Up" so this should be an interesting listen.

Great Speech Interview

The subject says it all.

Honeymoon Day

Today is the third anniversary of my marriage to my wife, so I'd like to post a couple of videos to acknowledge that. She's put up with me for nearly ten years altogether now, so it's the least I can do... Obviously, we have to go with "Honeymoon Day" from Among the Trees, and I also love "So Me, So You" from Grown Folks Table. Love you, Abby, in case you read this!

Strong- Available Now!

Here's the video for "Greener" in case you missed it. This was of course the lead single from Strong, which is now available on CD in the US via Vagabond's Store! Pick it up now! I'm a sucker for having the physical album, so although the US version was available online, I'm happy to have the hard copy on the way.

Cruisin In My Super Beetle

I've got a lot of catching up to do on youtube- check out this great video for one of my favorite Speech songs- "Cruisin In My Super Beetle." What a great video. Just fun, and it fits the song perfectly.

Guess there was no room for anything like this on MTV and BET seven or eight years ago....

Spiritual People "Bonus Tracks"

To follow-up on yesterday's post, here are some of the songs that appear on the Japanese version of Spiritual People but not on the US version. If you haven't heard them, hope you like them!


So Much Folly
The Temporary (Woe Is Me)
Poverty
Spiritual People (Original Mix)- this mix really is quite a bit different than the US mix.

A Free Soul

To follow up on Gumbo, here is a look at the video done for the album- it is very much in the style of AD videos done at the time, specifically "Tennessee." And, of course, the song was produced by Speech as was the entire album. Take a look!

Also, I have had a chance to listen to this album a couple of times and I really like it. I'd say that this song is the best one on the album, and probably the most "AD-sounding" song as well. We'll have more on it later, but I highly recommend it. It's almost depressing to listen to uplifting music like this seeing as where things have went..... If that makes sense!

Spiritual People

All right, let's finish up our series comparing the US releases of Speech albums to the versions released in Japan with a look at the two versions of Spiritual People. As mentioned before, this is when it gets a little tricky, because the US version was released two years later and rearranges the track listing quite a bit. In this case, the US version has three songs that did not appear on the original and is missing six songs that appear on the Japanese version, so these are pretty substantial differences. I believe there are also small differences on many of the songs, and the title track is mixed completely different for each album.

This is the US track listing. The three songs in bold do not appear on the Japanese version, all three are classics and would later appear on Peechy (two of them are bonus tracks) in Japan:
1. Brought To You By (Music & Life)
2. Spiritual People
3. The Simple Love Of Life
4. A Traveler
5. Cruisin' In My Super Beetle
6. It's A Challenge For Me
7. Livin' In The Real World
8. Brother Speech
9. Jungle Man
10. Y-O
11. Ghetto Fabulous
12. Burning Rage Inside
13. Always In Love
14. Late For My Own Funeral

Missing from the US release are the songs "So Much Folly" (simply a great song), "The Temporary (Woe Is Me)" (another fantastic song), "Nothin New But You" (another great song, also found on Down South Produckshuns), "Poverty" (yet another great song, detect a trend here?), "Our Image" (appears on the US version of Hoopla), and Redemption Song (from the US Hoopla). There are also five skits on the Japan version, if skits are your thing. So basically, the Japanese version of this album has four classic Speech songs that are not available in the US, plus a better mix of the title song "Spiritual People" in my opinion, and two bonus songs that come from the US Hoopla. You can't go wrong with either one, but fans really should make room for both on their shelf or in their iPod- or, pick up the Japanese version of Spiritual People along with Peechy, and you will be set.

For simplification, here is the Japanese track listing, and again, the bolded songs/skits are not found on the US version:
1. An Agenda (skit)
2. So Much Folly
3. Living in the Real World
4. Late For My Own Funeral
5. Ghetto Fabulous
6. The Temporary (Woe is Me)
7. A Glass of Water (Skit)
8. Y-O
9. A Traveler
10. People Everyday (skit)
11. Brother Speech
12. Warm & Snugly (skit)
13. Jungle Man
14. Turn the Record Over (Skit)
15. Love of Life
16. Burning Rage Inside
17. Always In Love
18. Nothin' New But You (also on Down South Produckshuns)
19. Spiritual People
20. Poverty
21. Our Image (from the US version of Hoopla)
22. Redemption Song (from the US version of Hoopla)

From here on out, the US fans really get hosed as we will not see a true US release of a Speech album until the compilation The Vagabond in 2005. Luckily, Peechy and Down South Produckshuns could be easily found for those of us who looked for them....

Whew, that was kind of a chore sorting these two out!

Hands Up

Here's a look at a song called Hands Up featuring Arrested Development's One Love with a guest appearance and Rasa Don on drums. I heard awhile back that One Love has a solo project in the works, so it's something to keep an eye on.

And speaking of Rasa Don, here is a look at his blog- also found here on blogspot. Rasa Don has of course been with AD since they started, but was unfortunately not present for the game of horseshoes on "Tennessee." :)

Southern Fried Funk.... Again

Oops- it's come to my attention that when I posted "Southern Fried Funk" the other day I inadvertently posted the version from the Since the Last Time mixtape, which featured talking over it and so forth. So here is the version from the Classic Masters compilation. Also, I pointed out that there was a different version of "What's Going On" on Classic Masters during that post- well, it's the ONP remix that was posted earlier as well. It's hard to keep all of these remixes straight at times! However, this version has been remastered, so here it as well.

Gumbo

I had never even heard of this album until a week or so ago when I was browsing on Speech's Facebook page and someone asked Speech what happened to the group. I didn't think too much of it, but then when I was looking at the Down South Produckshuns album this was listed as one of Speech's projects along with the title: Droppin' Soulful H2O On The Fiber. So I looked it up on amazon and found it very cheap, so I picked it up. The curiosity got to me.

Now I haven't really had a chance to listen to it so I'll withhold from too many comments, but I did read through the liner notes and there are quite a few items of interest for us Speech fans. Number one, he produced the entire album. I didn't expect that, especially as it arrived in 1993, right at the height of AD's popularity. Number two, he appears to be featured on a few songs. In fact, he is credited under four different names on this release: Speech, the producer, DJ Peechy, the turntable instrumentalist, Todd Thomas, background vocals, and "Music" by Brother Speech. A man of many hats. This also appears to be the first use of "Vagabond Productions," which of course is still going to this day. So this is a project that Speech was very, very involved with.

As far as the title, it appears to be referring to dropping tears on paper- I wondered where that came from! Now if I can just figure out what "Impregnated Tidbits of Dope Hits", a song from Speech's first album, means....

So I will give it a listen and post my thoughts at some point- I look forward to it. For those who would also like to listen, here is a link to the entire album: Gumbo. I did not post this download so I can't vouch for it, but I'm sure it's fine.

Here's a look at one of the songs via youtube, with Speech on the chorus. This song was also on the Since the Last Time mixtape discussed earlier. We will have much more on this album later....

Live on Arsenio

Aw, the Arsenio Hall show- those were the days. I still don't get the "whoo-whoo-whoo" thing, which led to a bunch of terrible jokes in movies. Passenger 57 comes to mind....

(As an aside, I despise "humor" that features older white people trying to act cool by playing up a racial stereotype- this usually involves someone trying to rap and starting out with some beatboxing, or someone saying "fo shizzle, my nizzle". Just awful awful stuff, and never funny. Please make it stop!)

Back on topic, Arsenio always had great live performances on his show as I recall. A lot of acts got a big break appearing on the show, and Arrested Development appeared when the show was at it's most popular. Here's a clip of them performing "Tennessee", courtesy of youtube:

Southern Fried Funk

Southern Fried Funk. This was a b-side from the United Front single. I had no idea it existed until I ran across the Classic Masters hits package. So I picked it up, and really, I'm not sure why this song didn't make Zingalamaduni. I love it.

The Classic Masters album also has a different version of "Like Marvin Gaye Said (What's Going On?)" that I'll have to post soon. It's not advertised as such so I'm not sure where this mix came from. It edits out the Marvin Gaye sample, so maybe it came about due to a rights issue.

Here's a somewhat funny story tied to this song- apparently Speech was asked to come up with a slogan for the city of Atlanta and he suggested "Southern Fried Funk." Hey, why not? It's better than the slogan here in Omaha- "O, what a city!" Indeed.

(Note: Here is an updated post with the album version of this song.)