Last Friday marked the start of something new for The 45 Brains. Friend and fellow vinyl enthusiast, DJ Delgado, put up a great blog entry on Rappin’ Duke that got me excited. I saw it on his feed with the hashtag “#45fridays” and asked him if this was the beginning of a new tradition. And, being the 45 aficionado that he is, Delgado was game. And now the start of a soft collaboration is underway.
Delgado got the ball rolling last week, so that means today is my turn to write about a record, and what better way to kickstart this joint than to write about another dynamic duo in honor of The 45 Brains x DJ Delgado.
The 45? Eddie and Ernie: Bullets Don’t Have Eyes
I was first turned onto this song by DJ Primo at the “Escape from NY Pizza” spot in the Mission. I was there to catch him, Nick Waterhouse, and DJ Lucky spin slow jams to a hip crowd and to learn about 45s. While waiting for my slice to heat up, I half-jokingly asked Primo to teach me everything he knows about soul music. He explained to me his method for finding new records and then told me to look up “Bullets Don’t Have Eyes”. A day later, I ordered the record online and played the waiting game.
Recorded in 1972 and put out by Ever-Soul (a Daptone subsidiary) decades later, it’s one of the last recordings by Ernie Johnston Jr. and Eddie Campbell. Check out the back cover to read about how David Griffith came upon this jewel. And not to mention that NERDTORIOUS nodded to it about two years ago. The comments on that blog post are pretty informative because Eddie Campbell’s son, Christopher Campbell, says that his father wrote the song and did all of the vocals for it too.
“Bullets” is not the only Eddie and Ernie record I have, but it’s one of my favorites. It’s also one of the few 45s I own that has its own album cover, which is a plus. And recently, DJ Forty Fivan put out this amazing mix that featured “Bullets” as the 4th song. I’m definitely late to the game on this record but I wouldn’t sleep on it if I was you. You can easily find $10 copies online.
Well that’s it for this installment of 45 Fridays. Just wanted to point to a record that gets many plays at my house and to a dynamic duo that released many velvety tunes. Now, keep an eye out at DJ Delgado’s blog “Musings From the DJ Booth” and definitely check out his Mixtape Mondays section. He should be dropping a 45 mix soon enough.
The 45 Brains 