"Alleys Of Your Mind" b/w "Cosmic Raindance"
scum stats: at least three pressings...red/white labels with black printing, red labels with black printing, white labels with black printing. Anecdotally red/white labels are likely the first pressing, as those seem to turn up the least frequently. I'd venture the red label is the follow-up pressing and the white labels seem to relatively ABOUND in quantity. At one point 30 years after the fact Juan Atkins claimed that the white label was a bootleg, but I think that's the fog of the decades. Original pressings plated and pressed at QCA in Cincinnati, pretty sure that white label ran at Archer a few months later. )
The beginning of Detroit techno. Never mind that it's a wholesale lift of the hook from Ultravox's "Mr. X", all you need to know is that this is the shit.
Something shifted on my cell phone in the past week where the first thing to play when I plug into the car is no longer Mike Birbiglia's "Abby" but instead, Cybotron's "Alleys Of Your Mind."
This. Makes. My. Day. Every. Day.
I first heard this song on an "Old School Sunday" Detroit radio show...seemingly each one of the R&B stations in town sets up at a local spot with a club (read: not radio) DJ spinning live. None of the tracks get announced or even identified.
Anyway, I was driving on Vernor headed west bound at the Gratiot intersection and this one drops. Sounding like nothing I'd ever heard before. Sounding like a BAND, a vibe I'd never thought I could gather from a techno record.
Anyway, I was driving on Vernor headed west bound at the Gratiot intersection and this one drops. Sounding like nothing I'd ever heard before. Sounding like a BAND, a vibe I'd never thought I could gather from a techno record.
And...nothing. No idea what the song was or how to even try to find it.
A day or two later a call to dear band mate Mick Collins had the question answered in about ten seconds. Imagine my delight in finding out it was a DETROIT record.
In a few weeks one of those white label copies would be procured from People's Records. To later discern the story that Atkins and band mate Rick Davis self-released the record, essentially selling it out of the trunks of their cars and moving roundabout 25k copies in that manner.
As Atkins debut release, it's INSANE that the first lyrics he ever unleashed into the world (at a mere 19 years old!) are "Who'll cry for modern man?" I think about this line ALL THE DAMN TIME it's soo stupid good.
To hear Mick talk about how it hit in Detroit...everyone heard it...and everyone freaked the fuck out. To the point where EVERYONE was bumping this song and loving the hell out of it.
Oh to have been around Detroit in 1981.
I've not stopped loving this record since. The Dirtbombs covered it on our Party Store LP back in 2011 and it's one of my happier full circles having made that happen.
I've made a habit of grabbing any copy of this record I ever run into. So I've got some extras floating around here. They are all usually HAMMERED...a sign that a disc was a TRUE party record, getting played all the time, not kept in a sleeve, folks dancing so hard they bump into the turntable. Every copy of this disc has lived a full life no doubt.
Tell me your best "full circle" story and whomever's got the best one will get a hammered copy of this record. Entries must be submitted by midnight central time on May 26th.
Used to grade used records during a stint working at the Record Exchange in Lynchburg, VA in 1998. Came across an album of early ’60s Zappa recordings I had personally hand-graded at Cabin Floor Records in Greenville, SC last year. Still had the RecEx pricing sticker with my initials on it.
I love it! I am from Erie (home of electronic duo The Stabilizers), also called little Detroit (for all the wrong reasons). Anyway, I have a nice collection of Rust Belt bands on wax and would love to give this wonderful piece a home next to my Friction (Stabilizers band before they formed) 45.
this is so cool! great stuff
First show I ever went to, 13 years old, NoMeansNo – Nelson B.C. We had no money but did have the legit-brilliant idea of going in early, bringing oversize cardboard boxes, and carrying them in looking serious to pass ourselves off as the load-in. I assume mainly due to amusement or unwillingness to bust a group of eager kids it worked! We cruised into the hall, hid in the cans for the next 2 hours, strolled back out to the show. Mind was blown and bought Live n Cuddly on CD.
Subsequently, I lost the love for NMN as my late teenage years took me down the road of illegal-to-breach genre-borders (“I only listen to einstürzende neubauten and NIN now”) and the influence of cool kids and girls.
In my late 20s, after a move to weird and cold Saskatchewan led to lonely internet nights, Soulseek, and stumbling upon the legendary but now defunct Satan Stole my Teddy Bear review site. The proprietor was a NMN appreciator who would eventually become their merch guy / occasional collaborator. Through this site all those early 90s indie/punk legends that soundtracked my golden age rolled back – Pigment Vehicle, Mike Watt, M Blanket, Submission Hold but more than anything it was NMN – how did I manage to forget about all this shit!?!? I was back in it for good. Saw them that same year at a Mexican restaurant in Saskatoon, and ~15 more times in the following years.
So that was the close of the circle, but now at 43, having seen every NMN tour through their retirement, with a spot on the vinyl shelf for Alternative Tentacles and Wrong Records – undeniable that this circle wrapped around my neck and is still happily dangling. Thank you John Chedsey!
This is like a love child of Devo and Styx Mr. Roboto. So coool. I dig it man and would love to have it in my collection of crytonic music. What a gas, man you diggy the most!
Growing up in St. Louis, there are a couple legendary radio stations that have gone pretty stale with age, that was until I turned 16 and finally got to control the dial. 88.1 KDHX is a phenomenal community station with different shows (pretty much) every hour of the day. The musical genres cover the musical spectrum.
Anyway, one of the longtime shows is Soul Selector with Tom Papa Ray. The man plays old, dusty R&B, Soul, early rock, etc. 45s and it’s an incredible mix everytime. Plus, the commentary is good. Having listened to him for years, I was very familiar with his voice. One day, a buddy and I are flipping through the stacks at vintage vinyl and I hear that familiar timbre. I talk to him for a little while about the show, what he’s listening to currently, whatever when he tells he’s also a huge reggae head.
That conversation opened my eyes and ears and I’m glad it did because I have been able to experience so much gold music, rhythm and culture. Thank you Tom Papa Ray
Went to the Cro Bar in Chicago many moons ago and heard a track that I just had to have. DJ Psycho Bitch threw down a track that I had to basically go into Gramaphone record store and “sing” the horn section of the song to the workers for them to help me figure out what the hell it was. It ended up being Perfecto All Starz, Reach Up. If you know the track, here I am in the store doing my best “Duh, duh, duh, duh, dun, dun, dun, dun…..” and finally the Bitch herself walks out and tells us the track name so I scooped it up. This song was an absolute beast and floor killer.
Several years later I stopped DJ’ing (close your eyes for this next part), and sold all of my dance music vinyl, including Perfecto All Starz – Reach Up. Im talking the best of the best from the 90’s to early 2000’s. Then of course 10 years later I get back into DJ’ing but everything is digital now so it was easy to recapture all of my old treasured vinyl on 1’s and 0’s with no problem. However, one of my great amigo’s was and is still DJ’ing to this very day, tracked down my original copy of Perfecto All Starz, Reach Up because he knew who bought it from me and he bought it back for me and gifted it to me on my first night back on the turntables. I still have the record and will never get rid of it again!! Thanks, DJ ZEEK!!!
Speaking of techno or of electronic music more broadly. I was a kid when Aphex Twin’s “Come To Daddy” came out and I remember seeing the music video on MTV late at night. It both scared and intrigued me equally, but I missed the name of the track and the artist. For years images from that video occasionally floated through my mind and I always wanted to figure out if what I had seen was even real or was it a late night fever dream that only kids can have? Years later my best friend Paul had downloaded the music video on Limewire or something and showed it to me. It was a revelation. I became obsessed with all things Aphex Twin. Finally seeing him live at Day For Night in Houston (RIP), his first US show in a decade, was a culmination of 2 decades of curiosity in that man’s music and his world.
Cool! Gary Numan with an edge?
I have been a Sun Ra fan for a long time. One day several years ago, I attended a small arts and crafts festival in a small town in Alabama. This is the kind of fest where you might, for example, buy a homemade birdhouse. As I was perusing the fest, I came across their live music stage, usually bluegrass or gospel, and lo and behold, Samarai Celestial (one of Sun Ra’s drummers) was there to perform. We met, struck up a friendship and stayed in touch. Around that time, I was on a listserv with a group of Ra fans and we were helping Dr Robert Campbell put together his first edition of the Sun Ra Discography. Samarai was very helpful and we even got a copy of Ra’s booklist from his class at Berkley. Some months later, I made the acquaintance of a small label owner, connected him to Samarai and Samarai was able to put out two great solo albums. It was nice to go full circle from the time we’d met at that little festival and to feel I had a tiny influence on helping an Arkestra member, who had given me many hours of listening enjoyment out of the spaceways.