Some of the more astute listeners out there in radio land may have noticed that I’d taken most of the summer off and have been taking a break from my radio duties. I had a few things I wanted to check out, and I kinda needed the time off. But summer’s more than halfway over and it was time to get back in the saddle.

The 7

My return happen to coincide with the untimely passing of Melvin Bliss on July 26. Though not much is known about the man, he is most widely known for what was originally a 1973 throwaway b-side called “Synthetic Substitution”. The open 2-bar intro break (played by none other than Bernard Purdie) would soon find second life as one of the most recognizable breaks in hip hop, owing to its widespread sampling. If you’re not familiar with the man (and let’s face it, unless you’re a long-time crate-digging hip hop fan, you probably never knew), peep this excellent write up from the folks at Wax Poetic and watch the short documentary video below.

For the show tonight, I threw together as many of those Synthetic Substution tracks that I could find on short notice.

stream
Too late! File removed (mp3 – 55Mb)
(playlist)