weekend update
from ?uest on Jul 15 - 07:39 PM
MONTREUX, SWITZERLAND-@@@@1/2

well. d being d left me no choice but to jump ship before the tourbus made its 13 hour trek to switzerland. tina, alan (manager), gwen (wife and assistant), dom (manager), and wendy (love and basketball) took a train that went 300mph. and got us there in 4 1/2 hours.

as always any conversation with alan leeds is an education in music 101. q-tip may have told you #4080. but alan told me 1-4079, and 4080-1,000,000. and most of them involved mr. brown or "p" (as al calls em)

we were disscusing the shock of d's stamina lately. even though he has been feeling the winter weather in summer bite lately, he's been a trooper. al says it's cause of a few stories that al related to him.

while working with james brown from 70-74 as road manager (al was first a disc jockey as a young teen in '65 when he first met james.) he told me mr. brown's philosophy was that sickness means weakness. and thus if you got sick you were....-well? fired. alan says that a bout with pneumonia damn near got him fired (no pay for that week). so james was on some postman shit.

well fate would have it that james too would come down with a sickness that was 2 steps from death.

on a show night.

according to assistants mr. browns health was startiling and 3 doctor's were like "motherfucker stay in bed!!!!!!!!!!" he already threw up the bones in his toes, fainted 4 times, had a 102 fever. he didn't even know his own name at one point. so it was safe to say that there would be no show tonight in rhode island. so everyone was prepared. radio, press, promoter, venue......everyone except mr. brown.

james got on his leer....near death....in winter, and flew to do a show. because to cancel a show was to display weakness. and mr. brown is anything but. of course leeds finds out that mr. brown is en route to do a show that everyone is under the impression is cancelled. so he has mere minutes to reinstate everything. hard as it was he did......of course the house was half empty and alan knew this was his final moments in the house of brown. he even predicted to his lady friend that "at around 11:01, you will hear the nastiest conversation of your life".

sure enough. sparks flew everywhere. @$#@#$#!!!!this and that. in the end browns ego had him convinced that since alan's son-like love for james had him cancel the show, he would not fire him (of couse no pay for a week).....but he let him stay.

there are so much stories i've been told. stories that let me know that the yoda figures to d and me are just as human and imperfect as d and i are to some of y'all. to hear gwen tell it, prince lost his keys (me and d), ran out of gas (tariq), and had his moments (all of us) as much or more than we do. i dunno...that sorta made me feel better. at the dinner table i was a straight up groupie

"so this nigga fell out the tub then what?!?!?!!"


anyway....around midnight despite the rain and cold weather i crusied to the happening spot....for me that is RECORD SHOPPING!!!! whenever i come to here i give at least a g away. tonight was no different. it was a lil hard cause mos and crew were there too, so there was a minor mob scene. it's just hard shopping and diggin too. but i came up on all types of afro beat stuff. missing fela stuff, tony allen stuff, other afro beat groups. (for those who don't know afro beat is james brown esque african rhythms made popular by fela akute (the james of nigeria)....the funkiest shit ever!

so after that at 3am i went to a jam session. played a few songs. then came back in time to doze off to the only american thing on tv, my favorite movie of 1999: RUSHMORE! awww this is heaven. i dozed off at 6something and woke up around 1pm to the phone.

d.

he mad cause i took the train, on some we don't hang out shit like we use to. (oh god am i going into mos territory again?) anyway. nothing deep. i just explained to money that on days off away from home i'd love to see the towns i visit, and not wait 10 hours in the lobby when he gets ready to go. sorry but when i travel the world. i indeed do so.

well he invited me to the montreux president claude (last name?)'s estate. oh god!

a home overlooking the swiss mountainside
-vintage pinball games
-studio
-movie screen for tv
-1,000,000 records (yes 1 million 78's, 33's, 45's, cd's and 8tracks. 1/2 inch reels, 1/4 reels, dats. 2inch reels EVERYTHING. he has his own librarian to file this stuff.
and his archive collection is killing mine....alan leeds...everyone's the goverment...no one has the archive collection this man has.
his marvin gaye file is 9 hours of unseen concerts.

(i was like, imma hook tiny up with this guy)

unfortunatly we only had 1/2 hour so we watched rare marvin (d was mesmorized), this hillarious aretha from 71 when she decided to fool her orchestra for hire by doing an unlisted song, only for them to scratch thier heads in bafflement like (what song is this?). we also peeped a nina simone concert that almost had us in tears. it was painful to watch. in her regular way (more bitter than miles davis) she cursed the audience out (in mid song screamed on a woman for trying to leave paul mooney style "SIT!!!!.....SIT NOW!!!!!! I SAID SIT!") wowsers.

as for the show, anyone who knows the history of the montruex jazz festival knows a bunch of rich folks (people who deserve to be on some model shit) who come to hear david sanborne for the umpteenth time and george duke. of course we have hip hop there but hip hop shows are never in the special rooms.

taking his cue from nina, d turned that near new orleans (white version) crowd from stuffy "i thought he was the next marvin" jazzites, into FUNK MONSTERS....whew! even the promoter was like "play more! play more!"--and we never got that request. they stood on their seats! furs and all....i'm talking archie and edith bunker look a likes. straight getting down. amazing!

''i went from bashful to asshole to international''- CdoubleO