The Witzard

Los Angeles super-group/production team, Night Owls have returned with yet another pipin' hot slice of Reggae-infused Soul/Funk on wax, "Gossip" B/W "What'cha See Is What'cha Get." Just a quick refresher: Night Owls' core line-up consists of Dan Ubick (The Lions, Connie Price & The Keystones) on guitar, Blake Colie (Seu Jorge, The Lions) on drum kit, Dave "Wilder Style" Wilder (The Lions) on bass, and Roger Rivas (The Aggrolites, Jason Mraz) on organ and piano. Frequent The Witzard readers and vinyl enthusiasts alike may recall Night Owls from their previous two 7-inches, "There's A Break In The Road" B/W "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" with Afrodyete and Terin Ector, respectively, or Durand Jones-assisted "This Christmas," both issued last year on LA-based F-Spot Records. Now, Dan Ubick, Blake Colie Dave Wilder & Roger Rivas have returned, again, joining forces with F-Spot Records for th...

Just in time for Christmas, The Night Owls have returned with a new 45 showcasing a festive cover of "This Christmas" with Durand Jones . The Night Owls (or just Night Owls ) are drummer Blake Colie , guitarist Dan Ubick , and bassist Dave Wilder of The Lions , along with The Aggrolites' long-time piano/organ player Roger Rivas . Durand Jones is, of course, the frontman and namesake of critically-acclaimed Soul/Funk revival ensemble, Durand Jones & The Indications . Following "There's A Break In The Road" B/W "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" released this past July, Night Owls have re-emerged to bring us a Reggae-tinged version of "This Christmas" first popularized by Donny Hathaway in 1970 for ATCO Records. "A perfect jam to have on deck this holiday season. Side B features an instrumental version, where the Funky and grooving organ stylings of Roger Rivas keep the tune alive to be played on the dance floor ...

There's a Break In the Road / Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) by Night Owls Not to be confused with Rolled Gold's The Nite Owls, members of Los Angeles' The Lions & The Aggrolites have joined forces to form Night Owls . Blake Colie , Dan "Connie Price" Ubick & Dave Wilder from The Lions have linked up with kindred spirit, Roger Rivas from The Aggrolites . For Night Owls , Colie has stepped behind the drum kit, Ubick provides guitar/percussion, Wilder plays bass, and Rivas provides organ & piano duties. Night Owls' first collaborative offering stands as "There's A Break In The Road" & "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" 7-inch/digital single as part of F-Spot Records' ongoing Homage Series. "There's A Break In The Road" is an uptempo Reggae/Soul cover of Allen Touissant & Betty Harris' 1968-69 smash hit now featuring long-time Breakestra vocalist Afrodyete . Side B feature...

Dan Ubick has either played with, recorded with, backed up, or been sampled by everyone from Lily Allen to DJ Z-Trip. His own note-worthiest/most critically-acclaimed projects include Breakestra, Connie Price & The Keystones, The Lions, Rhythm Roots All-Stars, and most recently, The Mad Geezers & Night Owls. We've previously spoken with Dan Ubick AKA Constantine "Connie" Price on a number of occasions, over the years: once, in 2013 coinciding with the release of The Lions' This Generation on Stones Throw, again, in 2015 right around the time of The Lions' SOUL RIOT release, and just a year later, for Now-Again Records' 2016 re-issue of Connie Price & The Keystones' Wildflowers: The Expanded Edition. We were, also, fortunate enough to run an exclusive premiere for The Lions' music video for their cover of The Clash's "The Magnificent Dance" from their 1980 genre-eschewing 3-LP magnum opus, SANDINISTA! as well as various covera...

First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving Day Weekend/Black Friday to all of our trusty readers out there and Happy Record Store Day Black Friday to my fellow crate diggers! Full disclosure: I'm pretty sure one of the first CD's I ever bought for my Walkman was Will Smith 's 1997 solo debut, Big Willie Style . Regardless, it was definitely one of my earliest brushes with Hip-Hop/Rap , which ultimately, changed my life! A few of my earliest favorite Hip-Hop albums I discovered on my own were Atmosphere 's Seven's Travels , Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill & Paul's Boutique, Wu-Tang Clan 's Enter: The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers,) and Jurassic 5's Power In Numbers. The latter has always had a special place in my Hip-Hop -loving heart and I would soon, go on to discover DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist 's heavily-bootlegged BRAINFREEZE , Chali 2na & Roc 'C's Ron Artiste' super-group, and Jurassic 5 's "last" album, Feedback , r...

"Video premiere!! Thanks to Otto Granillo and Junko Seki , I got to get my [New Wave] on producing this catchy tune, "Wallflower" for their group Kotolan . Mixed beautifully by my main man, Stephen Kaye at SunKing Studios ," The Lions producer and bandleader Dan Ubick AKA Connie Price enthusiastically wrote on Facebook this past May; just about a month after "Wallflower," Kotolan unleashed their second Dan Ubick -produced single, "Toyko Subway." Trombonist, audio-visual artist, and "OTO" half of Kotolan , Otto Granillo recently told me that he and his wife/bandmate Junko Seki "have been writing an producing singles lately, instead of making an album." Although, Granillo says they're currently "throwing around the idea of releasing a full-length album in the future [with] a group of previously-released singles from a specific year/period" of Kotolan 's recent work. Granillo currently plays trombo...

While my recent Best Albums, EP's & Mixtapes of 2016 List didn't include any type of "Honorable Mentions" section, if it had, it would have likely included the likes of De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Blink-182, Nxworries, and J-Zone (for Fish-n-Grits). Aftermath crooner Anderson.Paak and beat-maker Knxwledge's full-length debut as Nxworreis, YES LAWD! It's equal parts The Roots, D'Angelo, J Dilla, and Drake; a perfect mix of Hip-Hop and modern day R&B, easily one of Stones Throw's absolute strongest, most cohesive releases in years. I really haven't given Nxworries' YES LAWD! a whole lot of coverage here at The Witzard (aside from the early singles) and have really just been waiting for the perfect opportunity to write about Anderson.Paak & Knxwledge again... until this past Thursday afternoon, when I heard about Nxworries' "SIDEPIECE" music video filmed at Stones Throw "in the dungeon" by director Ross ...

Full disclosure: Lions producer-guitarist and founding member Dan Ubick and I are friends, frequent collaborators, and mutual fans of each others' collected bodies of work (or at least, I would like to think so). With that said, it's really a no-brainer that nearly any given time Ubick and his number of creative outlets decide to unleash genre-blending music upon the unsuspecting world, I'm ecstatic to have the opportunity to write a piece centered around it; I've previously had the wonderful opportunity to interview Dan twice before, coinciding with the releases of The Lions' This Generation and Soul Riot, as well as having the coveted honor to premier their Ross Harris-directed Clash re-interpretation, "The Magnificent Dance." In addition to The Lions and former Stones Throw-signed Funk/Breakbeat group Breakestra, Ubick has been fortunate enough to work with everyone from Snoop Lion to storied emcee Big Daddy Kane and even formed his own The Beatles/S...

Alex Goose is, to the best of my knowledge, the first (and likely last) Hip-Hop -loving Middle American producer who's been lucky enough to have worked with vastly different musicians like underground gran-wizard, prolific rapper-producer, and revered Jazz enthusiast Madlib AND hit-after-hit-penning Indie Rock mavens, Weezer ; aside from maybe only Uptown Funkateer and London -based producer and taste-maker Mark Ronson , who's recorded genre-blending material with everyone from Ol' Dirty Bastard to Doo-Wop revivalist Amy Winehouse . While he recently had the opportunity to remix Freddie Gibbs & Madlib 's critically-acclaimed Piñata with samples culled from Now-Again Records founder Egon 's storied re-issue vaults and back catalog, Goose has previously worked alongside the likes of Hip-Hop greenhorn emcees Kevin Gates , Jake Troth, Donnis , and Detroit -bred wordsmith Red Pill . "You may recognize the next Alex Goose -produced track from Silicon V...

Now, I wouldn't exactly go ahead and bet my life on it, but I'm almost positive the first Hip-Hop album I ever bought with my own money was Will Smith's squeaky clean, parent-approved Big Willie Style (1997) and after that, I believe it was the slightly less embarrassing and arguably, far more genre-shaping Power In Numbers (2002) by recently reformed Los Angeles six-piece Jurassic 5. Hip-Hop, as you well know even if you just remotely follow this very publication, is by far one of my all-time favorite genres, along with Hardcore Punk and Indie Rock. Throughout the five or so years I've been single-handedly running The Witzard, I believe I've done a few of these Best of... or year-end lists (most recently, in 2013). While there were a handful of undoubtedly great Indie Rock, R&B, Punk, etc. albums released throughout the course of 2015, I've decided to compile a Hip-Hop-centric Top 10; with that said, here are a few cross-genre honorable mentions worth a s...

Even since I've been into Stones Throw (Champion Sound-Donuts Era), the semi-respected Bay Area record label has slowly morphed into the place to go for cool, head-jerking vinyl. Peanut Butter Wolf has hand-picked a wide array of emcees, weirdo producers, Funk/Folk revivalists, solo artists, etc. Stones Throw 's genre-blending " Hip-Hop & more" roster presently includes: Madlib , James Pants, The Stepkids , Matthew Larkin Cassell , deceased mega-producer J Dilla , Steve Arrington, Quakers (Geoff Barrow) , Jonti, The Lions , Dâm-Funk, Jonwayne , and countless others. Announced just last Friday, 2 of the label's most note-worthy musicians have teamed up for a collaborative LP - Steve Arrington & Dâm-Funk ! Arrington, former Slave Funky drummer turned spiritual foot-soldier, has bonded with Dâm-Funk , who's quite arguably G-Funk 's last remaining post-90's producer. Steve Arrington self-released his first album in 20 years, Pure Thin...