Stinky Jim checking in with 5 scorchers that will be available in the Other Crate mate.

I’ve worked in record shops in Leamington, London, Melbourne and even Auckland but I reckon selling off the personal stash, super slow at these Allpress Gallery gigs, amongst sweaty palmed selectors and frenzied diggerators, is the best of the bunch. As always will have plenty that has never been for sale before and will be dropping prices on some of the older shizz, get in where you fit in. All killer, no spiller……

Jeru The Damaja - Come Clean LP (PAYDAY)

I’ve just started to broach the 80s/90s hip hop shelves and there are so many classics from a time when things were so much less generic and pop orientated. If there’s one Jeru record this is it with DJ Premier gifting one of his finest productions. Can’t lie this copy was sampled for a track on a Unitone HiFi 12” back in the day but before that happened Joost & myself saw Jeru at a Gang Starr Foundation gig in Manhattan. Things all went a bit Pete Tong at that when a gun was pulled and the place cleared out in quick time. In those pre-mobile days it was somehow comforting to see Jeru, shouting the house down on a public phone outside the venue, looking and sounding every bit as freaked out as we all were. Come Clean indeed!

Various Artists - WattStax LP (STAX)

Sampled repeatedly by everyone from Public Enemy to Andrew Weatherall/Primal Scream this show, often categorised as the black Woodstock,is classic business. Featuring an insanely stacked line-up including Isaac Hayes, The Staples Singers, The Bar-Kays and Albert King mostly wearing trousers that could have doubled as parachutes - this double LP gatefold edition is up there in the very very few live albums that stands on its own two feet and then some. If anyone can spot where I’ve pinched a bit of this in my dubious recording career they can have it for nix.

Theophilus Beckford - Easy Snappin’7” (STUDIO ONE)

Often quoted as being THE first reggae record in as much as it’s offbeat delights predated ska, Easy Snappin is a boogie woogie belter recorded in 1956 and released in 1959. This is obviously a 90’s repress. Theo Beckford was an alumni of the Alpha Boys School, where many of Jamaica’s greatest musicians were trained up and steered down the right path. This was his biggest tune #1 in JA, large in the UK and afterwards he went on to playing on hundreds if not thousands of sessions including laying down the evocative piano on Junior Byles Fade Away. A cornerstone foundation block in reggae’s architecture this is cheap at twice the price (says me!).

Salah Rageb - Egypt Strut 7” (JAZZMAN)

There’s a fair few pearlers in the late Salah Rageb’s canon but this one is the undeniable joint basically. Funky a.f. and grooving like a possessed chippie’s chisel this Jazzman pressing is plump and prepped for playing out palaver. The only reason you wouldn’t want this is if you have the Egyptian Jazz album on Art Yard, and even then this 45 sounds way way better on a big rig. Having written all that I’m not even sure if I can sell it!

Massive Attack - Karmacoma 2x12” Promo EP (WILD BUNCH/VIRGIN)

I’m very unscientific in my approach to record floggery, its generally just hit a random shelf and save the ones I really might want to play of a Sunday arvo or suchlike - the rest go. So I seem to have a bunch of high quality 90s tackle this time round including a heap of Massive Attack, aforementioned hip hoppery gems and niceness from forgotten folk like Mighty Bop, Lion Rock, Noiseshaper etc These Massive Attack 12s are the best value, so many good, varied and different mixes with usually at least one from the Mad Prof when he still had something deep and dubwise going on. This one got singled out because most of them are black on black or white on white and that photographs shite.

Cop these and plenty more at The Other Crate Fair on 11th of May at the Allpress Studio

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