(1974, Kama Sutra Records)
The fun thing about getting back into doing this list is why I originally started to want to do it anyways. It was because my record collection is this immense thing that meanders and osmosisides its way along with my life. And when I started this list, after months of figuring and calculating and having all sorts of notecards with albums or singles laid out on the camper trailer table to try and be as inclusive as possible. And as of now, my record collection kicks it in two spots on the compound, with fat stacks of non-family friendly music out in the camper, buried under some relocated crap from the house because I abandoned camper style earlier this year when it abandoned me, and then a ton of records in the house on an unfinished shelf that runs the entire hallway of the front of my crib. Probably about 500 records outside and 1000 inside, not to mention the stacks of 7-inches that are tucked away here and there. I actually had a couple dead 7-inch soldiers in the camper from the heat wave earlier this year, including a couple tight ass soul jams. But fuck it man, that’s what records are for, and what this list is about – being a part of your life, not a goddamn asset or bragging point or whatever the fuck.
That all being disclaimered and laid out, some of these records are not one actual physical records, because I’ve got multiple copies. And this record – Fire on the Mountain – it was one I grew up with. This is the Charlie Daniels Band album that contains the TRUE redneck hippie anthem, more so than any corny ass “Freebird” or whatever else – “Long Haired Country Boy” which is what I think of when I hear someone say “Charlie Daniels”. I guess the normal world thinks “Devil Went Down to Georgia” but that just reminds me of why I’m so ready to fight the rest of the world for being misguided and lost.
Anyways, I grew up with this, the ol’ man playing this record constantly. But as I got older and went away to college and got into the whole DJ/record collecting bullshit, I knew this was a classic and would grab whatever copy I could find if it was on the cheap at Plan 9. I, at one point, had four copies of it. Years ago, when we moved, I thinned everything down to one copy each, except for rare exceptions where I kept a back-up, and this was one of those exceptions. Too classic not to make sure I can play it.
But for me, the ultimate memory of this album is back when me and Boogie Brown were doing Prolo music in college, and had No Joke G as our DJ, and we had a song called “Drankin’ Wine” where we sampled that “a drunkard wants another drink of wine” line from “Long Haired Country Boy” and it was tight. My rhyme style in that song was old early ‘90s rapid-fire polysyllabism, but all about sitting around in the alley drinking a gallon bottle of wine with my boys. “I feel fine ‘cause the wine buzz goes to my toes/my mind does not worries, reminds to Prolo/oh no the bottle’s empty so let us slide/thru the door of the store Ford Escort is the ride” and so on. Basically, if anybody out there in cybertron listened to S.E.P. and dug that “30-Pack” song, I just now realized that “Drankin’ Wine” was like the precursor to that. (Not to mention that’s why when S.E.P. did a song with the same them, we called it “Drankin’ Wine – Part 2”.)
Well, we played this college graduation party on Floyd Ave. in RVA, I think it was only our second show ever, and shit was funny. Bunch of drunk ass white people watching some drunk ass hip hop by longhaired ass rural fuck-ups, in like ’93. Well, across the hall from these fine young college graduated ass people lived these older redneck fuckers, including one who was as big as Andre the Giant, or so it seemed. I should mention because I miss that motherfucker and know he can’t be but less than two hours away somewhere in this real world, my man Boxhead was in the house as well.
So this big redneck dude comes in with his little sidekick redneck friend, and they’re obviously looking to make trouble, and the people throwing the party are all worried and uptight, looking to shut it down before trouble gets found, but I – in normal lifelong Raven mode – stroll over to the big dude and am like, “What’s up?” We make edgy confrontational talk for a few minutes, and I am drunk so I’m hyped about being able to conquer the world, and he complains about the rap music, and I’m like, “What the fuck do you like?” and somehow he says something like, “Hey man, I’m just a long haired country boy,” so I’m like, “Hold up man I got something for you.” And I go over to No Joke G, who is probably playing some supremely terrible white-friendly conscious rap music at that point, and tell him to pick out the Charlie Daniels Band record. He’s like, “What’s it look like?” “Man, it’s the one you got two copies of that we cut during ‘Drankin’ Wine’,” and he has it. Those two copies, by the way, are one of my folks’ and one of my own. So he throws it on, and that guitar starts out – pure motherfucking anthem music – and it just blasts, and me and Boxhead and the big redneck dude and my boy Jocephus all just sing that shit loud as fuck. There were more than a few people at the party scared as shit, because it was gonna be confrontation and chaos and good times ruined, but it came together; and yet somehow many folks was still uncomfortable by how it was happening. But all I know is that song off that record turned a party into a motherfuckin’ party – the type of shit you remember, like I do to this day. And the chick whose party it was, who I dug and haven’t seen since and don’t even remember her name to be honest even though I was wishing I could get next to her back then, she came up to me at the end of the night and was like, “Thanks. That was the best graduation party I could have ever hoped for.” And me and that big redneck dude as round as he was tall who strolled in to talk shit to the egghead college kids, we were best friends by the end of the night.
That’s how I roll in real life, a potna for all, and powered by music. That shit might sound corny, but it’s real life.
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