Deep Cuts Week, Day Three: Three Weeks Ago

George McCrae, "You Don't Know" - For the longest time, the thing keeping me from taking the plunge and just starting an mp3 blog was the fact that I never felt like I had anything unique to offer - I mean, no matter how limited that Omerta single is, I'm sure there's someone else in the (ugh) blogosphere offering it up, even if I'm just too lazy to go search it out. Well, that's not the case with today's offering, which I randomly stumbled over one night in an inebriated downloading haze and haven't seen anywhere else since. And it's not like I haven't been looking, either; George McCrae is legitimately one of my favorite artists from the whole early-disco boom, and it's a genuine shame that most people seem to think his catalogue pretty much just consists of "Rock Me Baby" and "I Get Lifted" (and, if one were to know one's Shaolin Soul, "The Rub") - the man's greatest hits compilation is one of the most solid disco/soul CDs I've got full-stop, even if it does kinda get a little samey after a while. One would think that the compilers might have thought to include a monstrous K.C.-penned howler with a sick sick sick sick sick breakdown like "You Don't Know", but you'd be wrong, and as a result the world is forced to track down dodgy Brazilian compilations in order to hear it. Well, that or come to this site, I guess. (Click here to buy We Did It! used from a Gemm.com reseller)

The Hellset Orchestra, "To Outsurvive A Vulture" - If you're like me, within minutes of being informed about the event of a fire in both the disco and the Taco Bell you were already beating up the internet in search of more information about the Electric Six. No doubt you then went on to check out their unbelievably disappointing album, a tour-de-force of inert, unfunny high-test disco-metal with, at best, two other songs worthy of being called highlights next to the single's obvious majesty. Well, bad news: in the wake of the Arcade Fire, now we've got to go through it all over again, as now we've got a band pushing pretentious indie muso-roebics way past the point of stupidity in the form of the Hellset Orchestra, quite possibly the only klezmer-influenced band to come up with a song called (really) "Orpheus' Incredulous Eyepop". The difference is that unlike the Six, I've listened to their debut, the Greetings From The Great Humongous EP, more than once; admittedly, on the scale of indie EPs it's demonstrably closer to the "Hey, I bet these guys are going to come up with something really good in the near future" than, say, Young Liars, but that'll do quite nicely for now. Definitely worth checking out if you're looking for a good ol' unignorable time. (Click here to buy the Greetings From The Great Humongous EP directly from the band)