Blowfly - c/d

Those electro Blowfly tracks were commisioned by Bo Crane (of Pandisc Records fame) in 1984. Basically, the story goes (as I've pieced it together)...

Aside from running a major record pool and being the DJ for Miami's verion of Studio 54 (Honey for the Bears), Bo Crane was a TK employee. He quit in 1980, a year before TK folded.

When TK did fold, he knew he couldn't grab TK's current creative force (KC of the Sunshine Band) as he had just landed a major deal, so he grabbed TK's prior writer/producer, Clarence Reid to be Bo's creative source for his new label (Palm Tree/Red Rooster/Pandisc).

However, Clarence was in full Blowfly mode at this point, so Bo hired guns (Larry Dermer, Joe Glado, etc) to make tracks that ripoff Cybotron's Clear, Quadrant Six's Body Mechanic, and such. He gave these to Blowfly and had him write songs around.

I think Blowfly and company see these tracks as a blemish in his catalog (Tom?), but they've certainly begun a life of their own, becoming cult classics among the electro circuit.

Since Bo owned the tracks themselves, he gave them to Maggotron to rework into new songs:

"Electronic Pussy Sucker" became Palmerforce Two's "Street Wars" in 84
"Fuck the Devil" became Maggotron's "Bass that Ate Miami" in 88

Both of these were spearheaded by DXJ, the core guy behind Maggotron, and appeared on the Bass that Ate Miami compilation...a scattershot project milking Pandisc's catalog between 84 and 88.

I'd like to extend a deep hearted thanks to Tom and Max Bass for setting me up with a dinner with Blowfly a year or so back. It wasn't quite the interviewed I had hoped for, but it was the interview I expected!

He basically discovered and fostered Betty Wright.

It's not so much that we consider those two tracks as a blemish -- but Bo Crane stealing clarence's money. Which he did for 20 years.

And to the first post in this thread. "Standard Disco Funk" my ass! First off, Clarence invented the "Miami Sound" which begat "disco funk"

secondly, you failed to mention "Blowfly's Rapp" aka Rap Dirty which is the first rap song ever, and got re-recorded for that lp. That song was still leaps and bounds stylistically and artistically beyond anything else that had rap on it back then - 15 years after he first recorded it.

Thirdly "Nobody's Butt But Yours" Is a remake of clarence's big 1969 hit "Nobody But You Babe" - and isnt "disco" one bit.

Whoa! When did he first record it? And what's with the two song titles for the same song?

After Rappers delight came out in 1979, Henry Stone put the song out three times in 2 years as a TK 12 inch (rapp Dirty is the clean side, blowfly's rapp is the dirty side), on the Weird world release "Blowfly's Party" as blowfly's rapp and blowfly's theme and the weird world release Butterfly as Rap dirty.

I would play like $3,000 to hear this.

and last year;s Fahrenheit 69 Cd did indeed have Gravy Train!!!! on the hilarious "When Darkness Falls" tune.

And if anyone here knows those freaks, tell them they are fucking slack for not going to any of our FOUR BAY AREA GIGS LAST YEAR

Blowfly is spreading the weirdness!

France:
Feb 1 - La Trocardière, Nantes
Feb 2 - La Bellevilloise , Paris
Feb 3 - La Friche, Marseille

Long Beach, California
Feb 15 - alex's bar

Australia:
Feb 22: Jive, adeliade
Feb 23: Karaova Lounge, ballarat
Feb 24: East Brunswick Club, Melbourne
Feb 25: Northcote social Club, Melbourne
Feb 26: Ruby's Lounge, Belgrave
March 1: Lucky Country hotel, Newcastle
March 2nd: The Marquee, Sydney
March 3: Troubador: Brisbane
March 4th: Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast

http://www.numerogroup.com/press.php?category=Numero%20007

(good luck though obv)

I'm also very very curious as to how different Rapp Dirty was from its 1965 version to the 1980.

haha this thread is awesome!

Except for the part where punks stole some shit. Blowfly #1 though.

yeah the pappa and uncle tom stuff upthread is fascinating!

I love that this is like, Tom's ILX thread

what should Blowfly's next album be?

Jimmy Eat Pussy: Blowfly Goes Emo
featuring "Sugar I'm Goin' Down"

Dear New Yorkers, here's a special freakshow just for you:

Sat November 21 @ Knitting Factory in Brooklyn
Blowfly
Anal Cunt
Stalkers

https://www.facebook.com/BlowflyOfficial/photos/a.10150534388938990.377265.6072703989/10153418080748990/?type=3&theater

He has terminal cancer

awwww fuck

sadly he died today

Awful news. RIP.

According to Bowker, Blowfly will release a final album, intended as a gift to his fans, titled ’77 Rusty Trombones’ in February.

RIP

I found Zodiac Blowfly in a thrift store about 20 years ago and loved it. In theory, I shouldn't like the misogynistic & homophobic lyrics of Blowfly. In reality, they seemed too over-the-top to be taken seriously. If anything, Blowfly always seemed to celebrate the "freak" in everyone and I will miss the funky motherfucker.

His alternate career as Clarence Reid is also fascinating.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/clarence-reid-r-b-singer-known-as-blowfly-dead-at-76-20160117

http://pitchfork.com/news/62887-clarence-reid-aka-blowfly-has-died/

RIP

i had a chance to open a show for him about 10 years ago. it was at a dive bar and all the bands hung out and got lit before/after the show. we were all early 20s, and i didn't realize it but i guess at the time he was in his 60s. what a tough dude. he was really sweet to me and my friends and ended up putting on a hilarious, amazing show.

really sad I couldn't see him play one last time

blowfly was such a unique, gifted, pioneering artist and he will never get a fraction of the due he deserves, rest in peace

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/remembering-blowfly-musics-xxx-rated-superhero-20160119

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KlnU2ZVNpU

Herr Whiney's version is better than mine, but…here 'tis…

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2016/01/19/463569514/remembering-blowfly-black-music-s-filthiest-legend?curator=MusicREDEF

It's weird trying to write a sober, NPR-ish piece about BF…I have to talk about "incredible Fulk," where, due to an experiment, his dick becomes enormous every time a bitch call him a bastard, going on to "rip her pussy to bits" and then to ascend into outer space, like a tweedy NYT obit person. Same for "electronic pussysucker" : "I even fucked R2D2 from Star wars." Whereas Whiney can talk about him the way he talked about every damn thing. Whiney also got to talk about how innuhnet outrage addicts would lose their minds over his shit… i had something in there like that, but maybe NPR isn't the best place to make that point and it was excised. It turns out you have a lot of freedom at RS, so long as Jann Wenner doesn't care or has never heard of who yr talking about…

2 things that didn't make it into my contribution to the exploding "old music dudes are dying at a rate commensurate to the general publication alluvasudden…"

I coldcalled the successor label to TK Records in 1997, and not only spoke to Henry Stone but to Clarence Reid, who happened to be there. he told me he was going to record "when Doves Cum" cf Prince.

and when I met him when he was playing with the funk-rock supergroup with Norwood Fisher and some other guys at Wetlands in NYC a few weeks later, he told me that he knew that Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall had stayed in the same hotel room when shooting coming to america (as if the biggest comic actor in 80s america would share a hotel room with anyone other than a chick). Reid claimed that the maid noticed that when she came to clean the room, only one bed was made, which meant to CR that they were "butt buddies." He was insanely and very funnily angered by black guys who were more famous than he, vis-a-vis talking shit about MJ, kells and Prince.

Blowfly came on my radio show and we did an impromptu jam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awy5q6K0SRA&feature=youtu.be

"population"

nod to whiney and rob here, both solid remembrances
RIP