Blowfly
Zodiac Blowfly
(Weird World Records)
blowfly.com
By now, we all know how dirty and awesome the world's first rapper truly is, but here is a succinct and on-point blog regarding this album by Aesop D. from his site Cosmic Hearse (a one-stop shop for incredibly great and obscure music from around the globe!): "Now I don't believe in Astrology, but that is probably because I am not a girl or an idiot. I DO believe in Blowfly, so when he says by being a Libra, I love to smell toilet seats, who am I to argue? Fuck that Harvey Sid Fisher guy, he don't know shit about pussy."
Zodiac Blowfly is a typical live album by Blowfly in the sense that the funk flows at a steady beat and his lyrical missives (or dicksicles, whatever he wants to call 'em) rattle off with the natural flow of uninterrupted breathing. However, this album is also a bit of a concept record in which he tackles every track as a sign of the Zodiac. There's a formula to it too, he opens every track with a small ode to various types of women and dudes (which actually gets a little annoying over multiple listens as they don't vary much in wordage), delves into some bastardized version of a popular song relating to his interpretation of the astrological chart and is closed by collaborator Milton "Butterball" Smith, known here and in subsequent efforts as the Butterfly.
Makes sense, both men are incredibly nasty but so well-mannered in intention that the crowd goes wild at every turn, specially the broads. This review pertains to the CD reissue by House of Funk Records and while I don't have an LP to compare it to, it does seem like a little something is lost in the formatting of the tracks.
The personnel is Chocolate Perry, Cuban Joe, Ron Barkner, Robert Ferguson, Jerome Smith, Little Beaver, Benny Latimore and Mike Lewis. This album was recorded live in a studio with an audience in Miami between 1972 and 1973 and was originally released by the Weird World Records arm of Henry Stone's TK Records.
While the album is solid from beginning to end, I do find myself returning to "Leo - Sophisticated Sissy," "Scorpio - Clean-Up Woman," "Virgo - Ain't No Head Like My Woman's Head" and "Aries - If Eating You Is Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Right." Thinking about it, I'd like this on LP so that I can drop the needle on this at a party and to better admire the awesome cover art of The Fly presiding over the astrological chart and showing every sign how to suck it and fuck it right!
Aries - If Eating You is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right