Mang, I like gear. Keyboards, samplers, amps, synths. DJ decks, mixers, faders. I enjoy how simultaneously retro and futuristic they can appear. I both dislike and enjoy how they look through a pawnshop window, if you are picking up what I’m putting down. The best treat, though, are the bizarre looks that musicians give while performing deep in their analog bag, oblivious to the fact that screens are recording their funk face. Trippy and honest all at once.
We are able to witness how humans lord over technology. Where else does that occur nowadays?
That relationship has always piqued my interest. Records—45’s, seven, and 12 inchers—and other forms of physical media. The smell of new and old vinyl, wafting from the inner sleeve.
The bizarre notes you discover inside used records. Album cover art, liner notes, and artist photos are all important, but what matters most is what we as humans do with all that information.
I’m fortunate enough (and old enough) to have caught numerous Dâm-Funk DJ sets right here in SF at Lipo Lounge during Sweater Funk’s little run in the Chinatown basement. You could see him dancing, fist over fist rolling amongst a packed crowd, ignoring the mildewed flooring along with everyone else, and interacting with the music while putting in that waxwork. More than DJing, he would announce to the crowd who made the record, what label it was released under, and what year it came out.
In sync with the groove … that’s love.
Nobody paid him to do that. He charged it to the game, so to say. Paid it forward.
Skip ahead to the right-now, and those stolen moments simply don’t happen as frequently.
Orlando “Buscrates” Marshall, the producer, musician, one-time emcee, and badass DJ who hails from Pittsburgh, will confess that he is a “synth nerd.” That’s a good thing. He got booked by Dâm-Funk back in the day to play the decade-strong Los Angeles-based club night Funkmosphere.
They don’t book scrubs ova there, and that crowd will let you know real quick if what you think are special unheard joints have already been played out at their night.
It’s called dancefloor IQ. I told ya, Dâm-Funk be callin out his records now.
Buscrates’ Steel City is ground zero for the late great American playwright August Wilson, best known for a series of 10 plays called “The Pittsburgh Cycle” (or “The Century Cycle”), which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African American community in the 20th century.
George Clinton, a funk progenitor from the ’60s, told me via a phone interview circa early 90’s that back in the day, “funk, simply the blues sped up, is anything it needs to be in order to save my life.”
That defacto statement from HIM has never left my brain. Ever.
Three years ago, Buscrates’ debut record for Bastard Jazz Blastin Off posted up 10—count ‘em—stellar tracks, jams for days, clocking in just under 36 minutes. Performing that duty.
“Have I heard this before?” is the question levitating beautifully around that jump-off album.
“Jeah” and “Oh hell naw” fit as a succinct answer. Producing music for 15 years, releasing different projects on physical formats since 2009, Buscrates’ got solid production know-how for crafting indelible hooks out of breezy grooves and undulating synths.
Something that comes up during interviews with him is the simple inspiration he got from some of the stuff his Dad used to play around the house.
I feel you, Dawg.
Though COVID prevented him from properly touring Blastin Off, on the album Marshall shaped elements of post-disco hustle found in Leroy Burgess’s classic LOGG project, elements of vanguard ’80s R&B upfront in the production of Kashif, and a bit of that hard slap jazz-funk brought to the world initially by D-Train.
Buscrates, unlike some of his contemporaries, used these progenitors tenets as his starting block, not an endpoint.
With Control Center we hear, bear witness, to an artist coming into his own. With 12,000 followers on his Twitch page, word is Buscrates goes off on Fridays. He has unleashed the craft. Leaning a bit more on the ’90s hip-hop aesthetic, expanding the color rush of chord structures, not being shy about relying on the great effects of repetition—a sign of growth—we hear and see those talents flower. Blossom, with mid-tempo bump and airy melodies.
The opener “Get It Going” acts as a North star of what’s to come over the next 36 minutes,:gradual meter, wide spaces and gaps for ideas to linger about, and the wisdom to follow in the steps of 1980’s Boogie Down Production track work. Less is always more.
The simplicity found in the subtle banger “Four Track Mind” could be played during a roller skating jammer, a bus ride to the beach while peeping shapes being made in the sky by birds, or that keep-it-rollin’, fist-over-fist dance folks do when they caught up in the bliss of a moment and the pressures of the world are off someplace else, just for a second.
Like August Wilson, Buscrates is tellin’ stories—updated blues stories, too.
Buy Buscrates’ latest album Control Center here.
