The JONZUN CREW thread

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I got the Tommy Boy 20th anniv. CD remaster today of Lost In Space. These guys are like the electro-soul shark jumpers to beat all comers. I feel triumphant that I finally own this motherfucker.

Also: In 20 years, what kind of repressings/reissues will people be excited about? I mean is electroclash really that much fun? Or will the future even HAVE repressings or reissues? Discuss.

― Millar (Millar), Monday, 24 March 2003 04:04 (twenty-three years ago)

did they reissue Planet Patrol too?

― gaz (gaz), Monday, 24 March 2003 04:20 (twenty-three years ago)

ah i looked it up and i see they did. very good, yes.

― gaz (gaz), Monday, 24 March 2003 04:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Got the orig. "Lost In Space" LP, the "Pac Jam" single, and even the "Space Cowboy" single, as crappy as it was. Love these guys. Sooper inflooenchill

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 24 March 2003 05:28 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

where he go?

i been playing Bambaata's 86 Beware disc and wondering.

― bulbs (bulbs), Sunday, 28 November 2004 05:31 (twenty-one years ago)

anyone wanna send me Down to earth...or comment?

― bulbs (bulbs), Sunday, 28 November 2004 05:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I loved Peter Wolf's Lights Out album as a 9th grader, when I was goign through my heavy J. Geils. Michael co-wrote virtually the whole record with him (though not the title track), including the immortal "Oo-Ee-Diddley-Bop!". Great stuff. According to AMG, most of the record was intended for Geils!

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 2 December 2004 03:28 (twenty-one years ago)

ive got a copy of one of those old regionally-variable k-tel 'breakdancing compilations on some crackly vinyl.. apparenly it originally came with a big fold out breakdance mat / poster.. unfortunately mine was missing..

anyway, the jonzun crews 'we are the jonzun crew' is one of my fav crowd warmers..

― chris andrews (fraew), Thursday, 2 December 2004 03:36 (twenty-one years ago)

the jonzun track on the bambaata disc is a pretty weak atomic dog rip(oste)called, er, bionic cat or something.

i had no idea he did nkotb.

― bulbs (bulbs), Thursday, 2 December 2004 03:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Maurice Fucking Starr, dude. I liked the Sgt. Pepper getup, myself...

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 2 December 2004 03:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I believe Jonzun did New Edition's "Candy Girl", which is GREAT!

― donut christ (donut), Thursday, 2 December 2004 04:14 (twenty-one years ago)

you should hear his kid d'anthony's album. or maybe you don't need to. maybe you can download it somewhere. it's cotton-candy sweet.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 2 December 2004 04:17 (twenty-one years ago)

i have had the refrain from Ground Control stuck in my head all week.

― bulbs (bulbs), Thursday, 2 December 2004 04:21 (twenty-one years ago)

BOSTON REPRAZENT!

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Thursday, 2 December 2004 19:39 (twenty-one years ago)

six years pass...

Lost in Space is such a classic.

The other two albums are pretty awful though. Lots of hit pandering and re-writes of earlier tunes. "The Wizard of Space" is an even dippier "Space Cowboy".

Kinda wondering what happened to this guy. The Pack Jam video where he's wearing the blonde wig and his band is playing in these proto-Daft Punk spacesuits is so classic.

― frogbs, Thursday, 16 June 2011 16:34 (fifteen years ago)

Also, he may be one of the all-time worst lyricists.

― frogbs, Thursday, 16 June 2011 16:34 (fifteen years ago)

best boston band of all time

― geeta, Thursday, 16 June 2011 16:40 (fifteen years ago)

Kinda wondering what happened to this guy. The Pack Jam video where he's wearing the blonde wig and his band is playing in these proto-Daft Punk spacesuits is so classic.

Michael Jonzun is all over Dave Tompkins' vocoder book, which I highly recommend if you haven't read it yet!

― geeta, Thursday, 16 June 2011 17:23 (fifteen years ago)

any similar artists to this?

― frogbs, Thursday, 16 June 2011 19:57 (fifteen years ago)

> Also, he may be one of the all-time worst lyricists.

we will be travelling mastering the speed of light
we must go where the end is wrong or right (ight...ight...ight...)
GROUND CONTROL do you read me
repeat repeat
you must speak
speak

this is ground control
do you read me
we need you
you must stay
please, repeat
please don't go
i
i must go
hahaha ha
we must go

i love this so much. its like quantum theory for the soul.
lets see if the vimeo upload works...

― meisenfek, Thursday, 16 June 2011 20:49 (fifteen years ago)

http://vimeo.com/25206034

― meisenfek, Thursday, 16 June 2011 21:23 (fifteen years ago)

the music for "ground control" is so unbearably epic, I love it

― frogbs, Thursday, 16 June 2011 21:30 (fifteen years ago)

i mean the lyrics are easy to love but i've never seen someone with so little to say. "ground control, what more can I say?"

― frogbs, Thursday, 16 June 2011 21:36 (fifteen years ago)

that video is so great great great

― geeta, Thursday, 16 June 2011 21:39 (fifteen years ago)

yay it worked! thank you.

> i've never seen someone with so little to say. "ground control, what more can I say?"

haha yes. and the phrase "space is the place" is even more er.. simplistic. remembers me of the line "when you have to shoot, shoot. don't talk".
lets say Jonzun Crew is quantum-theoretics soul in the spirit of sergio leone.

― meisenfek, Thursday, 16 June 2011 21:58 (fifteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUslGSoEH8I

― meisenfek, Thursday, 16 June 2011 22:02 (fifteen years ago)

this is the real shit, daft punk ain't got nothin on this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6zkbjOvXWo

― frogbs, Thursday, 16 June 2011 23:19 (fifteen years ago)

here's a chorus of one of their later songs: "school days/were fun/everybody/had some"

― frogbs, Thursday, 16 June 2011 23:20 (fifteen years ago)

yeah but the lyrics to those early electro tunes were always goofy. that was part of its charm!

background on 'ground control' from dave's book:

"I thought I was a goner," says Michael. "We were swinging around at the top of an abyss. You look down. Now that's death. I was hearing things." What Jonzun heard, in that yeti pillow fight, was the van's radio, the dissipation of white noise into David Bowie's 'Space Oddity.' This near-death experience became 'Ground Control', the only track from Lost in Space too slow and dark for radio. "I thought it was time to leave Earth," he says. 'Ground Control' was the sad intergalactic feeling of slow-moving time. Earth has a lot of problems."

― geeta, Thursday, 16 June 2011 23:36 (fifteen years ago)

yeah i think i gotta get that book

― frogbs, Friday, 17 June 2011 13:30 (fifteen years ago)

Kinda wondering what happened to this guy

He may still be making music. He definitely was just a few years ago, when he sent me a CD-R of some recent stuff he'd (maybe digitally, hence the CD-R?) self-released. It didn't grab me at all, though, and I'm fairly sure I don't have it around anymore. Earlier, around 2000, he'd produced some early New Edition style music by his teenage son, which I wrote about at the link below; his website was (is?) jonzun.com.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-12-05/music/paranoia-jumps-deep/

Fwiw, I picked up a dollar copy of the second Jonzun Crew LP from 2004, Down To Earth, just a few months ago. Thought it was passably enjoyable enough to hang onto, but yeah -- not even close to the level of the first album, which I agree is great.

― xhuxk, Friday, 17 June 2011 13:46 (fifteen years ago)

Also, here's some notes I wrote last year about Peter Wolf's Jonzun-produced Lights Out LP:

J. Geils C/D

― xhuxk, Friday, 17 June 2011 13:51 (fifteen years ago)

five years pass...

Awesome video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVMOh4WWGi8

― Eats like Elvis, shits like De Niro (Tom D.), Friday, 10 February 2017 15:33 (nine years ago)

Remember when the future seemed like a great idea?

― Eats like Elvis, shits like De Niro (Tom D.), Friday, 10 February 2017 15:38 (nine years ago)

In the future there will be no keyboard stands, you will need two of your mates to hold your Korg. Now repeat that in a robotic voice.

― Eats like Elvis, shits like De Niro (Tom D.), Friday, 10 February 2017 15:41 (nine years ago)

holy shit that's even better than the "Pack Jam" vid

― frogbs, Friday, 10 February 2017 15:43 (nine years ago)

Lol I really want to read that vocoder book geeta talks about itt

― steely dad (Drugs A. Money), Saturday, 11 February 2017 09:48 (nine years ago)

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