2.27.2010

Money Vibrations

Party Down - Little Beaver
***1/2 out of 5

This is a record that I discovered out of my nerd like interest in hip hop samples.  A friend of mine put together a mix of songs that have been sampled by hip hop artists and one of those songs was "Get Into The Party Life" by Little Beaver.  I'm not really a big Jay-Z fan, but I found out that "Get Into The Party Life" was sampled by him for a song off the American Gangster Soundtrack.  The song has some great guitar and the lyrics telling you that "when you're blue and got nothing to do..get into the party life."  The song constantly stuck in my head for a week and I kept singing it to myself everywhere that I went.  It leaves a lasting impression especially during a hard day at work when the weekend and a cold drink is the only thing on your mind.  Awhile later in my favorite magazine Waxpoetics, an artist I can't remember right now talked about how he had "Get Into The Party Life" played at his wedding because it reminded him and his new bride of going out and partying when they first started dating.  After reading this and having the song in my head again, I was intrigued to find this record and hear the rest of it.  I eventually found the vinyl and I discovered that it's actually a pretty funky album. The cover has Little Beaver (Willie Hale) standing in front of what looks like a basement bar with his guitar.  The bar on the cover reminds me of the downstairs bar in the house I lived in with a three friends a few years ago. A song called "Money Vibrations" has a really funky bass line and has Little Beaver putting a great vocal on the track, even doing a falsetto scream.  The guitar work is funky and great on this album and always has me grooving.  I've never seen the cd anywhere, but I found a new copy on vinyl at Cheapo Records in Minneapolis.  I've also noticed that Itunes has the album if you're interested.