TRAMP RECORDS: Santa’s Funk & Soul Christmas Party Vol. 2 (2013)

“Well, I wish it could be Christmas every day-a-ayy!” Yeah? I don’t. Christ. Quite apart from the rampant commercialism, the shite on TV and the family arguments, we now face just over a month of the same twenty seasonal pop songs and the same five traditional seasonal songs being played in shops, pubs, office parties, on the telly or even at home over and over. And over. And. Over. Deck the halls with boughs of holly? Fa la la la la, la la fuck-off. Unless of course, that’s Little Jimmy Thomas’s version of Deck The Halls… Frankly, German label Tramp should be given some sort of award for services to humankind. As if it weren’t enough to put together one …READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

TRAMP RECORDS: Feeling Nice Vol. 2 (2013)

A new Tramp funky soul comp.? Feeling Nice Vol. 2 – chock full of superrare nuggets? We’ll just call it 5 stars yeah? Actually we won’t just do anything. Mainly because I wrote the press sheet for this back in the summer in which everything I could say about this release happily coincided with everything I wanted to say about this release – albeit with the kind of rhetorical flourish you’d expect from PR blah. Actually, I missed one thing out – the Lenis Guess opener’s a doozy. ‘Ave it – players below my blah: …READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

LONNIE LESTER: The Story Of Lonnie Lester (2013)

And here is the latest drop on Tramp Records‘ excellent The Story Of… series – can we seriously expect the quality to continue? Of course we can it’s Tramp Records! Good god why would you even raise the question? You didn’t? Let’s hear no more about it then. Now – Lonnie Lester – there’s a man with soul CV. Went on the road with Junior Walker, opened for Sam & Dave, the Drifters, Aretha, and Little Willy John and despite ‘retiring’ in the early nineties, still …READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

TRAMP RECORDS: Movements 5 (2013)

…And it’s another effortless five star compilation from Tramp Records – the label that’s spent ten years keeping the funk flame of the sixties and seventies burning. In fact, not just ‘keeping burning’ but also lighting new ones – and I’m not talking here about contemporary funk, I’m talking about rarely seen and little heard of privately pressed funk-soul cuts of yore – some of which have had their first proper release decades later via Tramp’s owner/ digger extraordinaire, Tobias Kirmayer. And in case you were thinking that maybe the privately pressed funk-soul from …READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

JIMMY ‘PREACHER’ ELLIS: The Story Of Jimmy ‘Preacher’ Ellis (2013)

The Story Of Jimmy ‘Preacher’ Ellis is the first album from Tramp Records this year and it’s yet another superb retrospective of a black American artist from the sixties and seventies – in this case Jimmy ‘Preacher’ Ellis. Frankly, it’s almost embarrassing, the regularity with which this label is able, even now, to track down black American artists from that era who have been largely ignored despite a body of quality work. Staggeringly, this …READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

TRAMP RECORDS: Ancestors Of Rap (2012)

Boom-bap original rap, it came from the funk and that’s a cold, hard fact – and here’s 16 excellent reasons why as Tramp Records’ bossman Tobias Kirmayer finds another excuse to share the findings of his funky beat-mining with the public on Ancestors Of Rap. Not that he needs an excuse of course, the man’s a terminal funk-fiend, but this compilation has an interesting raison d’etre. It is, of course, basic music history knowledge that hip-hop’s foundations have been firmly cemented in funk since the beginning when Kool Herc

ROY PORTER SOUND MACHINE: The Story Of Roy Porter Sound Machine (2012)

The Story Of Roy Porter Sound Machine is the latest in Tramp Records’ The Story Of… series and follows on from its superb predecessors featuring slept-on funky-soul man Vernon Garret and the unbelievably slept-on super-heavyweight Texas funk crew Soul Bros. Inc. While there’s been a funk-soul link between the previous two efforts, Roy Porter is a slightly different kettle of fish. He’s still funky but this is more of a jazzy affair. That’s right – it’s time to get your smooth on – but…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

VERNON GARRETT: The Story Of (2012)

RATING: 5/5 I’ve lost count of the times I’ve said that Tramp Records’ Tobias Kirmayer has done it again – but he has done it again. The Story Of Vernon Garrett is yet another quality retrospective look at the career of a funky soul legend who failed to get the recognition he deserved back in the day. And there’s no doubting that Garrett’s gospel-trained raw soul power is deserving of recognition as the …READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

TRAMP RECORDS: Movements 4 (2012)

TRAMP RECORDS: Movements 4 (2012)
Another coup for Tobias Kirmayer – the digger with his finger on the funk trigger! Kirmayer is the man behind Germany’s Tramp Records – a label currently doing more to propagate original rare funky music around the globe than anyone else – so when he says he’s been working for two years on a compilation in his Movements series and, in his opinion, it’s the highlight of said series so far, you should be sitting up and paying attention. And your reward will be Movements 4 a collection of …READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

TRAMP RECORDS: Santa’s Funk & Soul Christmas Party (2011)

TRAMP RECORDS: Santa’s Funk & Soul Christmas Party (2011)
[RATING:5]
Christmas songs really are the nadir of music aren’t they? Slade, Wizzard, Jonah Louie, Boney M, Wham, Bing Crosby, The Beach Boys, Shakin Stevens, Pariah Carey, Cliff fucking Richard…I don’t what’s worse – the same twelve songs played from at least December 1st every year, in every overheated, queue-ridden shop you go in or retail managers’ insulting notion that…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

DANIEL WANDERS & TOBIAS KIRMAYER PRESENT: Feeling Nice (Tramp Records)(2011) + tracklist

DANIEL WANDERS & TOBIAS KIRMAYER PRESENT: Feeling Nice (Tramp Records)(2011) + tracklist
There’s a rich irony to be enjoyed in the fact that the word ‘rare’ is one of the commonest words in the titles or subtitles of funk compilations. However, since Daniel Wanders and Tobias Kirmayer have come up with 12 hot dancefloor cuts for Feeling Nice that haven’t already been compiled to within an inch of their lives (far from it, in fact) you can take these two very much at their word. This means that the stuff on this release is very rare indeed.
…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM