Who is Donovan Jones?
Singer, writer, producer, quiet commentator, cerebral activist- with the emphasis most definitely falling on the cerebral side of things.
I’ve spent many years working my way along the journey of personal creativity.
This site is a manifestation of some of those discoveries and outputs for anyone to explore.
Listen to music, watch performances or sample some of my written creative output.
There is an open invitation for you to critique, agree or disagree, or even disapprove – the choice is yours. Feedback and comments are most definitely welcome.
Latest music
This week’s Midweek mutating earworm is quick and simple.
When ‘Fascination’ from Alphabeat came along in 2007 all I kept hearing was an 80s classic that would always get played at discos.
Purely tempo 180bpm and drum pattern from the intro / break is all it took to build an unbreakable earworm link to Footloose by Kenny Loggins
And then the next step on the journey is the same beat but slightly less high energy. The Cure’s “Close to me” taking almost the same drum beats but going off in a completely different direction.
And that’s it! Short and sweet, journey complete.
You know what comes next…? tomorrow!
Donovan.
I’m off down a musical rabbit hole again ferreting out Friday Favourites.
So it starts with thinking what from my collection would make a good weekend kickoff, up pops Boogie 2nite by Booty Luv.
Now I know that Booty Luv are made up of former Big Brovaz members and so it makes sense to drop in a link to ‘Nu-flow’ which draws me back to the Saturday’s earworm from last week but I swerve that tangent.
But then I start digging into the detail.
Turns out the top Booty Luv singles are covers (I know, shocker!).
Boogie 2nite was originally performed by Tweet and “Don’t mess with my man” by Lucy Pearl, so I give them both a listen;
And as I listen to the original (above) Mr Earworm takes hold and transports me across to ‘Don’t’ by Mr Edward Sheeran.
There is somewhat more than just a titular similarity hear, although that’s not uncommon for the 8th most streamed artist on Spotify. (No Scrubs / Shape of You ?)
So this is rapidly turning into a Midweek post but who cares? I’m having fun. Party for one anybody? 🙂
Enjoy the rest of your Friday and party like Orson!
Donovan.
PS the Single mix of Boogie 2nite was the Seamus Haji Big Love Edit (featured above), not the version of audio that appeared in the official video release, which in case you’re interested was the remix by DB Boulevard which you can find here – not quite as “party” though.
It’s another one of those stories that starts “one day whilst listening to what Spotify thought I would like….” but that shouldn’t detract from the musical interest here, promise!
I became aware of A Lack of Afro in the last couple of years directly due to a combination of Spotify and the Craig Charles Funk and Soul show on Radio 6 Music. The first track I was introduced to was “The Outsider” which went straight on a playlist and ended up on heavy rotation in my car. Second up was the track we are focused on today; “One for the trouble”.
I’ve no idea where Adam Gibbons (Mr Lack of Afro, himself) got his inspiration from or how he put the track together, but it triggered the mutating earworm off on another one of it’s journeys into my cerebral musical archive. What it was drawn to was the similarity of one of the hooks to a certain classic kids TV theme, namely that of Grange Hill. It took a bit of searching but eventually I found that the theme was a piece called “Chicken Man”; composer Alan Hawkshaw tells the story behind its creation in an interview with M magazine.
Whilst curating the playlist for my wedding reception this year I figured it would be great to throw in a few mash-ups amongst the standard party tunes and this seemed like a fun one to have a crack at. Sadly, ambition trumped ability and my hatchet job efforts are not good enough to share here. Personally I really hope Mr Gibbons shows just how well it should be done by remixing his own track and I’ll just leave that little gauntlet here…
If you’re new to Lack of Afro I thoroughly recommend a listen; Joss Stone features on “Take you Home“, Allergies fans will enjoy “Take it Up a Notch” featuring twins Wax and Herbal T along with “Back in Business” and I can give personal testimony that “Recipe for Love” featuring Jack Tyson-Charles’ fine fine vocals makes for a great first dance at a wedding.
Explore and enjoy.
Throwback tomorrow as per usual for a Thursday.
Donovan.
I have a trio of treats for you this Friday following a theme of lyrical advice for all across the ages.
Starting off with Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution will Not be Televised”. Funky, Flute-y, Jazzy, wordy, full of attitude, smarts, political and social commentary.
And if you like that, roll up for lovingly crafted, 21st century homage to Mr Heron, courtesy of Smoove, aka Steven Moove, titularly 50% of soul-funksters Smoove and Turrell.
There is just a hint of Geordie twang in Ferank Manseed’s vocals, plenty of updated witty commentary, at least as much flute as the original, and a boat load more funk.
Finishing off this week’s Friday Favourites is further inciteful scribbling cleverly crafted by Mr Political Poet Scroobius Pip and accompanied by the casio-inspired bleeps and beats of Dan Le Sac
And if you fancy a hard-er-core dance version try this Flat Eric-Phat Beat mash/mix
Club away my party hearty friends, or as Cameo would say, Word Up!
Donovan, out.
OK I lied, couldn’t really go without popping in this bonus. This got played immediately before U2 came out on stage for their mass-multimedia extravaganza, Zoo TV. Fits right in on this post.
I know what I like (and I like what I know). I like well-crafted and catchy pop songs that remind me of other tunes, just like this one…
When “Up” came along from the Saturdays back in 2008 there was something about it that took me back to my youth. It took a little while for the earworm to make its way to the golden nugget of musical rootage but eventually it got there as memories of Saturday nights in front of the TV watching Ernest Borgnine and Jan-Michael Vincent do their thing in a souped-up chopper flooded back.
Airwolf was one of those classic 80’s hero shows that, along with Knight Rider, Blue Thunder, Street Hawk, Auto-man and Manimal kept many a young boy, such as myself, out of mischief. Aside from Knight Rider, Airwolf is pretty much the only theme tune I could hum if asked. Sylvester Levay composed it, pretty sure the Saturdays have no idea who he is though.
Up, up and away in my beautiful… helicopter
Somewhere there is another song chugging away trying to hook itself around my brain but it eludes me for now. Maybe we will return to this again?
Throwing back as it’s Thursday tomorrow (rather than up).
Donovan.
Friday Favorites time and this is real treat. I love this song from tUnE-yArDs, for it’s joyous sound, the rich vocal harmonies and the kooky unconventional writing.
There is a strong tribal feel to the rhythms, a couple the lyrics are in Haitian Creole French which would give a possible clue as to some of the cultural influences of the music.
The accompanying video is reminiscent of the kind of kids tv that I have spent many a semi-conscious hour enduring. Featuring vocalist Merrill Garbus, it feels like a cross between Yo Gabba Gabba and The Wiggles.
Music trivia anoraks may be interested to know ‘Water Fountain’ (released in 2014 on 4AD) featured in the soundtrack to FIFA 15 and was also used in an advert for the Google Pixel phone.
Not your cup of tea? That’s ok more randomish picks out of my collection to come each and every week.
And tomorrow is weekend!
Donovan
Latest writing
Feeling Triggered? Have you ever had a song trigger some kind of musical memory in your head? Something sounds familiar but yet different, sometimes the answer comes quickly, other times you are left scrabbling around in the musical detritus of your aging mind trying to grasp at an elusive thread of a shared melodic phrase […]
The Proposition Imagine you are an entrepreneur. You are considering creating a business which makes a new product that serves a highly useful purpose for consumers, everyone will want one. It is designed to look great and has a high price tag with the potential to make lots of money for investors. The Problem There […]
How Do You Know What You Are Supposed to Do in Life? As someone who doesn’t believe in fate, predestination, or absolute free will, I don’t think there’s a ‘supposed to’ anything. As time passes, there’s only what you choose to do and what you’ve already done. This year has been significant for self-reflection (yes, […]
Time to concede, give in (but not give up). There is more stuff in the world than you can ever see, there are more things than you can ever do, there are more people than you can ever hope to meet. The world is limitless but your time money and energy never will be, and […]
2am comes around again and here I am on another mission to save my sanity, or maybe better this time, to save the world. Conversation over dinner last night turned to the subject of religion (maybe unsurprisingly for an atheistic household) and I posited how a lack of belief in god should be celebrated more; […]
It’s 2:36am. Clearly I’m not asleep, given these words are being typed into a laptop literally as I write. Fortunately it’s fairly unusual for me to be this awake in the middle of the night. When I am it’s often as a result of some caffeine intake later than is really sensible, but not that’s […]