TH3 D14SP0R4 0F H0P3...

the diaspora of hope 
sows itself in untended 
margins, for future harvest 

SONG OF THE DAY: Fairchild

Willie West’s “Fairchild” is so damn funky, a song written by the Southern Gothicc Futurist wizard Allen Toussaint, which when combined with West’s impeccably crossroads-ish smooth vocal stylings, it was an immense force, albeit not one which reached the popular masses after Josie Records released it in 1970. In fact, the hauntingly funky beat of “Fairchild” was unfairly categorized as a threat to social stability, and used to pass draconian anti-funk laws throughout the South, from eastern Texas through northern Florida, and all the way up into Central Appalachia, as far north as Kentucky and West Virginia. The government was afraid of mystical funk. Most of this was repealed and came undone, culminating in another Toussaint song channeling of the Universal Mystics, “Southern Nights”, being re-recorded in a far less metaphysical manner, and popularizing a more vanilla funk behind Glen Campbell’s cover. Once they’d added 3 tablespoons of vanilla to the raw funk, it lost enough of its drunken universal magnetics that we could all have it again. But if you put the breakbeat of “Fairchild” on loop (as much of it as you wanna consider a breakbeat) during a new moon, and light colored candles to the four directions (purple to the south, orange to the north, green to the west, and a golden one to the east), that raw funk is opened up even more than a normal ear hears. This is a version of high fidelity involving deep metaphysics, which Toussaint was a clairvoyant for, though our consumer society makes you think “high fidelity” requires expensive stereo equipment. Willie West, too, was a clairvoyant for these deep metaphysics, which is how he recorded “The Devil Gives Me Everything (Except What I Need)” later in life.

SONG OF THE DAY: Southern Girl

Frankie Beverly died last week, and I don’t think there’s anything was more pure Black cookout music than him and Maze. It didn’t offend nobody, set a lovely mood, and there was an extensive catalog that went on for hours. I was texting a friend about it and called it yacht rock for Black folks. The next day she sent me a post that Questlove did saying the exact same thing. Maze was smooth as hell. Anyways, this is probably my favorite Maze track, at least today. It changes regularly, depending on the vibes, but I tend to come back to “Southern Girl” pretty often.

SONG OF THE DAY: Funky Honky

This song does not exist on 45, sadly. We can’t have nothing nice.

SONG OF THE DAY: Oye Como Va (kudzu'd)

Southern Gothicc Futurism is the philosophy I live by. I don't exactly call it mine because I don't know how it came to be inside my mind enough to say I own it. But it's there. I've been writing on this blog for well over 15 years (probably longer). I also have a patreon, where Southern Gothicc Futurism is developed more fully, and where you can support me in cultivating that as well as all my fucked up arts. I even have a public samples link for you to get a taste of the patreon outside the paywall. I hate paywall. I hate walls. I hate money. But the society I am forced to navigate is full of bills and walls and all that shit. I'm doing the best I can.

SONG OF THE DAY: Rainy Night in Georgia

Listening to Tony Joe White on John Brown’s birthday, contemplating how to be a better race traitor.

R41S3D T0 B3 STR4T3G1C...

raised to be a strategic 
burnout which goes off fast as 
fuck in inspired increments 

SONG OF THE DAY: RVA Follies

Having enjoyed my own RVA follies over the years, I enjoy this song. DJ Harrison is pretty great. Also lolol at 1990s gentrifiers who get mad about the RVA branding as having ruined Richmond and drawing in 2010s gentrifiers. It was all of y’all. The city was not cooler because cooler people were displacing poor people than the more normal people displacing poor people now. Relatedly, the "Jeff Davis Flea Market" is the absolute most perfect ending for anything Jeff Davis, a wonderful multicultural raggedy ass flea market where you can get piñatas and purple camouflage pants that would make the actual Jeff Davis roll over in his grave.

SONG OF THE DAY: On and On Infinite P Remix

I was thinking about how Erykah Badu was gonna make a perfume that smelled like her cooch, and how weird it was that people thought that was so weird. She should’ve made it a cologne in my opinion. Y’all are so fuckin’ uptight.

SONG OF THE DAY: Space

Bums me out that futuristic visions always have to be highly technological and flying through space and shit. Southern gothicc futurism is firmly based on the historical precedence of tri-racial isolationism, hopefully somewhere where there’s mountains and sea, definitely rivers, and that can be anywhere in space. But it also has to be somewhere, like early American swampland, seen as not having value, so all the assholes go away. Although I guess they never go all the way away.

S0VTH3RN G0TH1CC H1ST0R13S...

southern gothicc histories 
cause a mind to kudzu through 
a lifetime of “if only”s 

T3ND3NCY T0 WR1T3 FVTVR3S...

tendency to write futures 
without even trying - keep 
the power of art in mind 

S0VTH3RN G0TH1CC FVTVR1ST...

southern gothicc futurist - 
piecemealing peace from the trash 
scattered through environment 

SONG OF THE DAY: Going Back Home

This song features one of the greatest gimmicks in modern music history – using an electrified guitar to mimic the sound of a bunch of chickens cackling in the yard. I maintain a Heavily Researched and Highly Informed list of the Top 100 Songs of All-Time featuring this technique, although that title is misleading because it truly only covers the era of electrified guitars being played. But this song has been in the Top Five for nearly six years now, ever since the Back to the River (More Southern Soul Stories 1961-1978) Kent Soul release from late 2015. This is as close to a Spotify Wrapped as you’ll get from me.

S0VTH3RN G0TH1CC FVTVR1ST...

southern gothicc futurist 
born with sub-liminal thought 
from intermediate space 

S0VTH3RN G0TH1CC FVTVR1ST...

southern gothicc futurist 
saints can’t be manufactured; 
they’re born from civilized dirt 

S0VTH3RN G0TH1CC FVTVR1ST...

southern gothicc futurist 
horizons always threaten 
storms - keep a shoulder towel 

S0VTH3RN G0TH1CC FVTVR1ST...

southern gothicc futurist 
philosophy bedazzles 
a most mundane existence 

3V3N FR1NG3 CVLTVR3S FVLL 0F...

even fringe cultures full of 
misfits don’t want me - their type 
of dirty cultivated 

SONG OF THE DAY: Nothing New

 

Whenever Morray is blasting out of somebody’s car, it just makes me want to disappear for four days into a Carolina del Norte oblivion, checking out a car show or some drag races on a Saturday, looking for a good gas station pupuseria, hopefully hitting a train yard somewhere within an hour’s radius of Rocky Mount, and contemplating how great it would be to go to the beach but knowing I can’t actually afford to stay there and it’s white as fuck too, which is always the worst parts of North Carolina. Shout out to whoever did that Thelonious Monk mural in downtown Rocky Mount; I believe it’s magic. We need one like that in Hamlet for John Coltrane too, and fuck it, on the way home might as well have one in Danville for Clarence 13x too, "for the culture" - whatever the fuck that means at his played out point.