Music Blogs

Can Beck and Stereolab be Wrong?: Step back in time with me if you will to the late 1960s, when the world was exploding and music reflected the groundswell of political madness and creative innovation that marked that dayglow era. You had everyone from Stockhausen to the Beatles to the Fifth Dimension shaking things up and setting people straight. Studio musicians couldn't keep up with the workload while underground artists (think Yoko Ono) couldn't get spat at. Flying below the radar of all these styles, yet meshing them together perfectly was the Greenwich Village sibling vocal quartet unknown by their family name, Dedrick, but further cast into outer darkness as The Free Design.

Influenced by the Beach Boys, the Hi-Los and the adventurous counterpoint experiments of British classical composer, Benjamin Britten (among other oddities), the Free Design seemed to be cut from the same cloth as the Fifth Dimension ("Up, Up And Away," "Aquarius," "Stoned Soul Picnic") and the Beach Boys, all sleek vocal harmonies and ambitious arrangements, but their records went unsold, their careers unnoticed. The band released seven albums from 1967 to 1972 before disbanding.

But by the mid '90s, hardcore Free Design fans like Stereolab, Beck, Cornelius and Super Furry Animals were clamoring for the group's albums to be reissued.

Inspired by this newfound interest, the Free Designed re-grouped in 2000 to record "Endless Harmony" for the Beach Boys tribute album, Caroline Now. They capped if off with a full length recording, 2001's Cosmic Peekaboo.

In 2005 a remix album hit the racks (The Now Sound Redesigned), featuring the mad skills of Peanut Butter Wolf, Madlib, Belle & Sebastian, Danger Mouse, Kid Koala, and Mars Volta. Not bad for a band of short haired Republicans more accustomed to singing on toothpaste jingles than accepting love from contemporary underground rap and alt rock stars.

Not sure how the brothers and sisters Dedrick sound today, but the following MP3s reveal all the magic melodic goodness and powderpuff vocal glory of which these talented singers were capable of.

The Free Design
"2002 - A Hit Song" (mp3)
from "Heaven /earth"
(Light In The Attic)

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The Free Design
"Bubbles" (mp3)
from "Stars / Time / Bubbles / Love"
(Light In The Attic)

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The Free Design
"Make The Madness Stop" (mp3)
from "Kites Are Fun"
(Light In The Attic)

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The Free Design
"A Leaf Has Veins" (mp3)
from "You Could Be Born Again"
(Light In The Attic)

More On This Album

Betty Davis: She Was A Big Freak: While we are digging deep, check out this nasty-licious master class in real R&B from Betty Davis. Once married to jazz genius Miles Davis (she was too crazy even for him ,though she did introduce him to Jimi Hendrix and the psychedelic world), Betty's first two albums and the tracks therein have been sampled by Ice Cube, Talib Kweli and Ludacris.

Betty's story is incredible: she wrote the songs that helped the Commodores ("Brick House") get a deal with Motown, then she turned down her own Motown record deal. Her debut 1973 album, Betty Davis, featured Sly & the Family Stone's rhythm section, backing the progressive funk female on such erotically charged tracks as "If I'm In Luck I Might Get Picked Up" and "Game Is My Middle Name." The album featured background harmonies from Sylvester Stone and the Pointer Sisters.

Betty's 1974 blowout sophomore album, They Say I'm Different, kept the tumescent charades in high funk resolution on "Shoo-B-Doop And Cop Him" (sampled by Ice Cube), "Don't Call Her No Tramp" and the dominatrix spouting tale of male submission, "He Was A Big Freak." Betty followed up with 1975's Nasty Girl, but this queen of savage sex funk was just too much for the era's Silent Majority to handle. But get a handle on "He Was A Big Freak." It makes Peaches look like Miley Cyrus.

"He Was a Big Freak"