New Music: Numero Group, The Huxtables

Annette Poindexter & the Pieces of Peace - Mama (Numero Group 2007, originally Twinight 1970)

Johnny Williams - Breaking Point (Numero Group 2007, originally Twinight 1967)

Various Artists – Twinight's Lunar Rotation / Numero Group

After unearthing dusty soul miss-hits in Miami, Detroit, Phoenix and churches everywhere, Numero Group returns home for their second dig into the wonderfully rich history of Chicago's underground music scene. They introduced the Eccentric Soul series with the windy city's lost Bandit Label and have spent the two years since piecing together the seemingly buried story of a similar imprint born out of ambition, business know-how and a bluesy R&B singer who went by Syl Johnson. From 1967 to 1972, Twinight Records rode the funds brought in by Sylvester Thompson's continuous stream of local hits under his hipper alias while putting out 45 after 45 of local musicians attempting to mimic the success story of labels like Stax and Motown. Despite cultivating a good amount of talent and masterfully working the PR game, the bands just could not breakout of the all-night radio stream of no-name singles from aspiring artists the DJ's dubbed the lunar rotation. Eventually, most of the promising young groups lost hope and returned to their day jobs, Syl Johnson left Chicago for the burgeoning Hi Records and Willie Mitchell's crafted rhythm section, and the two men behind Twinight returned to their independent promotion gigs.

Howard Bedno and Peter Wright, of independent promotion group Bedno-Wright Assoicates, honed their PR skills by cleverly aiming the music of Chess, Stax, Motown, Atlantic and numerous smaller labels into the ears of Chicagoans throughout the late 50s and 60s by any means possible, whether it be your local watering hole's jukebox or by the omniscient radio waves of WVON, Chicago's premier R&B station at the time. They knew the game and they were good at playing it, so it only made sense to utilize these skills for themselves as well and henceforth Twinight (which was initially called Twilight but tweaked at the end of 1967 due to a California imprint already owning the name) was born as a potentially lucrative side project. Incredibly important to the upstart was a silent third partner, the program director of WVON, Mr. E. Rodney Jones (I told you they were masterminds of the PR game), who was also the de facto manager of a seconds-before-breaking-out Syl Johnson. Jones talked Bedno into funding Johnson's first single in 1966 ("Straight Love No Chaser"), which was a local hit, and a year later Johnson's nationally-charting second single ("Come On Sock It To Me") was sporting Twilight 001.

This began the Twinight cycle of the next 4 years: Johnson would produce a hit and the incoming funds were re-invested into other local acts attempting to produce another star. For one reason or another though none of the artists was able to breakout of the local scene. Over the span of Twinight's existence, Bedno and Wright released numerous soul and R&B 45s but not one of the non-Johnson singles would claim any national attention. As this two-disc compilation clearly portrays, it was not for lack of talent and it obviously wasn't the result of poor promotions. I guess you can mark it down as one of life's many mysteries, because no matter how I try to wrap my brain around it, there is absolutely no reason that any of these included songs could not have been rocking the pop-R&B charts along side the many hits of Atlantic, Motown and Stax. Eventually Johnson got fed up with the lack of progress in the label's popularity (and obviously his earned money being invested in flopping local groups) and left for Willie Mitchell's Hi Records where he had another string of hits. Without those driving funds, the label could not support itself and quietly shut its doors in 1972. Bedno and Wright went back to promoting independently and the master tapes were stored away for dust collecting.

Numero opted to not include any of Syl Johnson's individual cuts on this two-disc collection, which makes sense since they are concentrating on the obscure, but there is a good amount of his production and influence strewn around the comp. The 40 songs that are included frequent the pop-R&B genre with stops in instrumental funk, heart-wrenching soul and throwback blues from musicians you more than likely have never heard of and probably will never again. They are the local talent show winners, the powerful voices from the neighborhood church's gospel choir, the child protégés, the on-the-corner fast-talker with his decent singing girlfriends and the disc jockeys with ambition. The songs' musical themes are familiar, though you have never heard the actual song before; they ooze this impossible-to-place nostalgia like the day-tripping bass line of Stormy's "The Devastator," the buoyant pop strings of Annette Poindexter & the Pieces of Peace's "Mama," the Donny Hathaway keyboard twinkles of Josephine Taylor's "I've Made Up My Mind" care of… oh, wait that's actually an early appearance from Hathaway, or the soulful Curtis Mayfield groove from future Impression Nate Evans.

With Twinight's Lunar Rotation, Numero Group has once again supplied us with an amazing compilation of crate-diggers' dreams, but you have to wonder when these re-issuers will hit the eventual ceiling. Even with the rampant revolving door of independent labels during this era, there are still only a finite number of them in existence. At some point, the diggers are going to stick their shovel in the ground and hear that clunking sound of rock bottom. Once all the gems are unearthed, where will they turn? In what direction will labels like Numero Group head towards? The men behind the N, Rob Sevier, Ken Shipley and Tom Lunt, have not come close to letting us down yet, so there is little to worry about in the immediate future, but you have to be at least a little excited anticipating the next eventual wave of digging.






The Huxtables - Hopper C (the Bunny) (Famous Class 2007)

The Huxtables – A Touch of Wonder / Famous Class

Well twenty years from now, The Huxtables may very well be one of those bands being dug up during the next generation of crate-digging. They are a relatively obscure duo, have a quirky name, are on a tiny D.I.Y. label and have a sound that is infectious without being typical. As long as this album goes sorely unnoticed then we are in business… well maybe that's too much to ask because I don't feel like waiting 20 years to enjoy the jovial rambunctiousness of A Touch of Wonder.

This is the third of the exuberantly packaged Famous Class albums I have received in the last few months, and it doesn't come close to disappointing. First came the infectious synth-pop of Snakes Say Hisss!, then the raucous surf of Boogie Boarder and now we have basement party-noise of The Huxtables. In fact, I just about tackled the poor girl who pulled it out of its envelope in my office a few days ago. She removed the strikingly colored 60-page handmade booklet from its bland yellow mailing envelope and simply said, "wow." I took once glance, recognized it immediately and flew out of my chair from across the room and snatched it out of her trembling hand before she could say another word. Sure she has not talked to me since, but hell, I don't need anyone because The Huxtables are bringing all the party I need directly to my headphones.

With twelve songs in just over twenty minutes, A Touch of Wonder is the best kind of party there is: brief and to the point. Each of the first three tracks barely surpasses the one-minute mark and match wits between scraping electric noise and raw drum/guitar interplay. As with the rest of the album as well, synths and bass make occasional appearances to accent the sound, but everything is basically thrown into a trashy mid-frequency range and sprayed out confetti-style on whoever is willing to toss their body around the cement basement. It’s loose and youthful but not all together juvenile. “Crystal Cubes” sounds Hella-ish but at half-speed (which is still pretty fast), “The Death of Private Pig/Hogs of the Road” features some Rob Crow-like guitar lines before they seem to lose interest with that idea and move on, and “The Goose” could have been a GSL throwaway from five years ago. These kids are decent musicians (I think), but seem more content to stay in the basement playing for their friends rather than producing a well-developed album. In fact, most of the appeal of an album like A Touch of Wonder is the whatever vibe of the music. The Huxtables sound as if they have been doing this to cure boring Saturday nights for years without any interest of taking it too seriously or to the next level. It’s two kids with no formal training slamming away on some hand-me-down instruments and having a damn good time doing it. Twenty years from now, that very well may be the free-spirit we need and crave, and if for some reason no one takes much interest this time around, I’ll be there to dig it up for a second chance.