The Amen Break Featuring Cards from Angus

Over the course of about three weeks, I got several packages from my Canadian friend Angus of Dawg Day Cards. Angus first introduced himself to me about two years ago and immediately waded in on my card war with the legendary Jaybarkerfan. This summer, it seems that Angus found himself on a driving tour of the United States with stops in Ohio, Arizona, and parts in between. In the process, he stopped at card stores and bought things -- hopefully plenty for himself to get his blog reignited -- and a few things for other collectors.

I thought about this post as I was driving home today -- that I needed to get off my lazy butt and post some samples of the cards that Angus sent my way. I had no idea, however, what I was going to say about them or whether I would have music to go along with the cards.

Then, NPR's All Things Considered had a fascinating five-minute story about one of the most famous -- and most frequently sampled -- drum breaks in the history of rock: the "Amen Break." The break was played by the late Gregory Sylvester Coleman of a DC funk band called The Winstons, and it was in a B-side called "Amen, Brother." The song itself is a simple enough piece -- only 2-1/2 minutes of funky jazzy sounding beats. The break is located at about 1:25 in the song:

If you are a music fan, you'll recognize that break soon after you hear it. According to NPR, it's been sampled more than 2000 times. According to the exhaustive "Who Sampled" website, that total is actually in excess of 2500 (2661 and counting). 

That ought to give me enough options for songs to select to accompany the cards from Angus. So, let's get to it.

N.W.A., "Straight Outta Compton"

Needless to say, that song is NSFW. It's the most popular song according to "Who Sampled" to have sampled the Amen Break. It is pretty obvious in the song too -- literally the whole drumline on this song is the Amen Break on loop. And this is almost always the way that the break is used -- as the foundation for the entire song.

 

Speaking of foundations, the foundation of my baseball card collecting truly came from chasing police card sets. I know I have said it on many occasions, but these police cards created my love for oddballs and comprise a large portion of each player collection I have for players before about the year 1996. The police sets continued after 1996, but they just are not as easily available. 

As an aside, the Jerry Augustine above was the first new addition to his player collection since June of 2016 -- when I added another police card to my PC for him. 

Snow, "Informer"

Canadian rapper Snow used the Amen Break as the base for his famous song "Informer." Once again, as with N.W.A., the drum break -- here, slowed down a bit -- is basically the entire base for the song. I had to use Snow, after all, since he is Canadian -- having grown up in the North York district of Toronto.  

I have always liked this song for its fast, mostly incomprehensible lyrics and the reggae sound incorporated in it. That sound comes honestly -- Snow's neighborhood in Toronto was a heavily Jamaican area, and he is well respected in Jamaican-Canadian music circles for his music. It's also incredibly catchy -- thanks in part to the Amen Break.

 

I think this is perhaps my second Topps Pristine card and the first one that I have that is encapsulated by itself. I'm very tempted to take Richie out of the hermetically sealed package for ease of storage more than anything. Still, it's tough to disturb the Topps hologram seal on it. My little kid voice in my head keeps screaming, "You'll ruin it if you take it out of that case! Don't do it!"

I listen to that kid, usually. I mean, I still collect cards thanks to that kid, so why wouldn't I?

Yaz(oo), "Situation (The Aggressive Attitude Mix)"

This one takes a little bit more listening. Slowly but surely, however, that drum fill becomes clearer as the underneath drumline again. I've always been a big fan of Yaz (Yazoo in the UK). As I have mentioned before, Vince Clarke of Yazoo came out of Depeche Mode and formed Yazoo with Alison Moyet. After Yazoo, he teamed up with Eric Radcliffe as a band called "The Assembly." Later in his career, he joined up with Andy Bell to form Erasure. 

If you want to hear something truly cool, do a YouTube search for "Foreigner vs. Yazoo Urgent Situation". It is what it says it is -- a mashup of "Situation" and "Urgent" and it is fantastic.

I'm not sure that Warren Spahn would have ever heard of Yazoo, though he certainly heard of Yaz from the Red Sox. I have my doubts that Spahnie would have even cared about Foreigner either.

Before the advent of at-bat music and music for guys coming in from the bullpen and, well, the wall-to-wall music that now assaults our senses at every sporting event because God forbid fans be allowed to cheer organically for their team, how did fans know what music that baseball players liked? I find myself assuming that Spahn would have been a fan of Frank Sinatra or Guy Lombardo or something similarly big-band and tuxedo-clad. But does anyone know?

And what makes me contemplate this stuff, anyway?

Jay-Z featuring Mary J. Blige, "Can't Knock the Hustle (Desired State Remix)"

This song is a remix of Jay-Z's third single from his debut album, Reasonable Doubt. Mary J. Blige appeared on the track as a favor to Damon Dash. But, by the time that Jay-Z's album was about to drop, Blige had already blown up and her label did not want her associated with some unknown punk from New Jersey. So, Combat Jack a/k/a Reggie Ossé (a lawyer for Def Jam/Island) tells the story that he basically had to beg for her to remain in the song. The whole story is intriguing to me, and you can read it on the song's Wikipedia page because why should I type the whole thing again!

Hostess cards rule. These were all condition upgrades to the ones I had in my collection already from my little kid days. Those days saw me as a 6-year-old learning how to cut along lines to get the cards off the box. I wasn't always successful. Actually, I was downright terrible at it and have a bunch of Hostess cards that are miscut, cut crookedly, or have weird scissor cuts from a jagged-edge fabric scissors getting used.

Pete Broberg is an interesting guy. He went to Dartmouth from Palm Beach County and is the son of a one-time Palm Beach municipal court judge. He grew up surfing off Palm Beach island. He loves sci-fi books and movies, and spent much of his time at the theater on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach watching Saturday sci-fi matinees. 

He excelled in baseball in high school, and the Oakland A's made him their first round pick -- second overall -- in 1968. He was selected one spot behind Tim Foli, two spots ahead of Thurman Munson, and 126 picks and 5 rounds ahead of future Brewers star Cecil Cooper. He didn't sign, so the Washington Senators made him the first overall pick in the 1971 June Secondary Draft out of Dartmouth.

His career was not what one would have hoped for -- 41-71, 4.56 ERA in just under 1000 innings pitched. But, Pete was a smart man and attended Nova Southeastern Law School. He made Law Review and was published in the Nova Law Journal. Even more wisely, all he does is draft and administer wills and estates and handle residential real estate closings in the law firm that still bears the name of his dad's law partner and his dad. So, maybe some day in the future, he and I will run into each other at a Florida Bar Association meeting. After all, Construction Law falls under the Real Property and Probate section of the Florida Bar.

The Theme from Futurama

Perhaps I should have put Pete Broberg's card with this song.

You can hear the Amen Break for the first time around the 12-second mark of the song, and it appears on and off throughout the song. 

I've watched a few episodes of Futurama. I never started watching it regularly, probably because I never watch much of anything all that regularly unless my wife wants to watch something with me. I really have never been a big TV watcher -- I was always wanting to be outside or reading or listening to music or organizing my baseball cards. I also like silence a lot too.

To close things out, Angus sent me these Leaf Certified autographs from 1996. I believe that this is my first David Nilsson autograph, so that's really cool.

Mike Potts jumped out at me as being interesting in this group. Potts was born in Langdale/Valley, Alabama -- just across the Chattahoochee River from Georgia and south of I-85. He went to high school in Lithonia, Georgia -- a town just outside the I-285 "Perimeter" and just north of I-20 in Eastern DeKalb County. The Indians drafted him from Lithonia High School in 1989, but he did not sign. The Braves then drafted him in 1990 from Gordon College in Barnesville, Georgia and signed him. The Brewers signed him off waivers before the 1996 season, and Potts pitched in 24 games for the Brewers that year.

Potts was done with baseball after the 1996 season. He decided at that time to follow in his father's footsteps and became a police officer. He worked for a couple of years for the Durham Sheriff's Office before he joined the North Carolina Highway Patrol in 2001. Potts was injured in the line of duty in February of 2013 when, on what seemed to be a routine traffic stop, he was shot in both of his hands, in his shoulder, and in his face. 

Mikel Edward Brady II was sentenced to 20 years in prison as part of a plea deal for the shooting. Thankfully, Potts was able to return to his position within a year and by February 2014. Potts saw his bravery and resolve to get back to work as nothing more than just doing his job. In May of 2014, he received the North Carolina Purple Heart for injuries received in the line of duty. 

Here's a photo of him receiving that award:

Angus, thanks for the great cards -- and especially for the excuse to find out about Patrolman Potts and Pete Broberg!

A Plug and Cool Surprise from Angus

I spend a lot of my free time -- in between posting here, working, reading blogs, and trying to be a good husband -- on Twitter. Often, it's the first thing I read in the morning (usually to catch up on what is new in the world of European soccer) and many times it's the last thing I actively read before playing a mindless game of "Civilization Revolutions" on my iPad and nodding off to sleep.

A few weeks ago, I got a new follower on Twitter called @CardMavin. Card Mavin is a completely free website that gives people a realistic view on what their cards are worth based on real time eBay sales and listings. Perhaps, in the not-too-distant future, the site may include aggregation of information on sales -- or at least asking prices -- from COMC, Sportlots, Just Commons, etc.  That probably will take some intellectual property rights agreements with those sites, I'd suppose.

That said, the folks behind Card Mavin reached out to me and told me how much they enjoyed my writing. After I asked if they had the right "Tony" from the blog world, and after I asked if they had actually read my blog -- oddly, the answer was yes on both counts -- I was sufficiently flattered enough to be receptive to their approach for me to write a guest blog. 

After a couple of weeks where work conspired to keep me both busy and lacking in inspiration, finally I sat down and hacked out my post: "Advice for Getting Back into Card Collecting." Thanks to trying to be brief -- which, as many of you know, is more of a challenge for me than trying to extend a post to a particular length -- I set forth a list of three pieces of advice for folks considering whether they should get into collecting or back into collecting. 

Please take a read of my thoughts there and provide some advice of your own. And, while you're there, check out how CardMavin works and give feedback on Twitter to @CardMavin.

Okay, now that I have plugged one of the first appearances of my writing that does not involve writing about construction law (I am, in fact, general editor of a book published 15 years ago and I am a general editor as well of a book that is in the works now about trial practice in construction cases...seriously), I need to give full props to the blogosphere's Canadian Cleveland Browns fan, Angus of Dawg Day Cards.

First, he has watched as his team has actually improved its QB situation with RGIII, a QB who caused his own offensive line to hate him in DC -- to the point where they hardly helped him up after sacks and whose seeming refusal to take any blame for mistakes rubbed everyone the wrong way. I mean, after Johnny Manziel, perhaps everyone who is a sentient being is an upgrade at QB, but when people from around the league come out and say that you are a "jerk" who "didn't stay humble", you know you have some problems.

Still, as a Browns fan as Angus is, he found the bright side of things and noted that having a guy like RGIII for the here and now while the team tries to build isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Is there a comparable situation in all of the Big 4 sports to being a Browns fan? I mean, at least in baseball, most every team has gotten to the postseason in the last 15 years.

I really feel for Angus on that level. It is close to the situation in Milwaukee from 1993 through 2006, when the team just sucked and sucked and sucked and it didn't look like there was any plan in place under the Seligs other than, "Let's suck as bad as possible so that we can prove our point that small market teams can't compete."

Amongst all this, Angus still finds time to sprinkle sunshine around to all of us bloggers. 

I've seen two others of these now around the blog world, and I'm happy that Angus sent one my way. The nine discs on the Milwaukee Brewers "Triple Play Funmeal" include Robin Yount, Sal Bando, BIll Travers, Sixto Lezcano, Von Joshua, Charlie Moore, Jim Slaton, Jerry Augustine, and the cleft-chinned Eduardo Rodriguez. 

Even without seeing the 1977 copyright date, I could have dated this item to that very year for a couple of reasons. First, if this had been issued in 1976, Hank Aaron would have been included. Second, Sal Bando would not have been included in 1976 because he signed as a free agent from Oakland after 1976. Finally, it could not be from the 1978 season because the Brewers simply cut Von Joshua after spring training in 1978 and they traded Jim Slaton after the 1977 season to Detroit for Ben Oglivie. Slaton then re-signed with the Brewers after the 1978 season.

Angus, many thanks once again for the fantastic surprise you sent my way.

Certified Angus Cards

Back during my "War" with Jaybarkerfan, the final shot in the battle came from a foreign country. It wasn't quite like the shot that Bob Walk the Plank fired -- I mean, it's tough to top getting someone who is French involved in any war (sorry, Mr. Card Papoy, for the low blow). 

But I was lucky enough to enlist a volunteer from Canada named Angus to join in the battle.  Angus had sent me cards before that he is much more easily able to find -- in particular, the O-Pee-Chees that never get as far south at Atlanta -- and to JBF, he sent action figures of prime ministers.  You gotta love it.

Well, Angus finally became a blogger recently.  He's not a baseball card collector to any great extent, but rather, he's a football card collector.  Specifically, he collects the Cleveland Browns, and his blog name references the famous Dawg Pound -- it's Dawg Day Cards.  I'm proud and lucky enough to be one of six blogs currently on Angus's blog roll.  So, if you have extra Cleveland Browns cards, I'm sure you can entice Angus to take them off your hands.

Perhaps to celebrate his newly christened blog, Angus sent me a package of cards that he picked up at his local card show on the US side of the border.  I think to myself about what that must be like -- having to leave the country, clear customs, maybe even get a passport stamped -- and all just to get the mail (since Angus has a US mailing address for all of us to send him cards) and to go to a card show.

Anyway, whenever I hear the name Angus, I don't think about that movie from the 1990s with the fat Minnesota kid who is really smart and with George C. Scott ambling through it with his eye trained off screen at the check that the producer was holding in his hands to ensure that George would stay on set and not mumble, "I was Patton, dammit. And I know...I returned the Academy Award for that role, but Christ on a bike, I'm a real ACTOR!"

I think, instead, about AC/DC and Angus Young.  I'm sure that Angus of Dawg Day Cards has heard that one plenty, but tough -- it's time for AC/DC plus Brewers and Braves!

"Who Made Who"

I'm pretty old school when it comes to AC/DC.  I stopped listening when "Thunderstruck" made it big -- it was just nothing special to me...sorry to all you fans.  But I listened like crazy to the album "Who Made Who," which was actually the soundtrack to the movie "Maximum Overdrive."  So, let's start with the title track to that album:

For that song -- which is really underrated, in my opinion -- we get a group of oddballs that are underrated in my opinion too: Topps Stamps.

I dabbled in philately as a kid -- my grandmother was a notorious packrat who kept letters that she had received as a kid or that her parents had received when she was a kid...and she was born in 1909. So it made for a pretty decent collection.  But these 1961 Topps Baseball Stamps (more info here from the fantastic Net54 forum) eluded me until Angus's package arrived.

Man, I could get lost on that Net54 forum.  I love history stuff, especially history stuff about things like baseball and baseball cards that I really enjoy.

"Big Balls"

The song that every teenage guy thought was super funny due to the double entendre filling the song And, with lyrics like "I've got big balls/I've got big balls/And they're such big balls/Dirty big balls", it wasn't like it took a genius to figure out the joke.  So, I'd call it pretty juvenile, generally.

Kinda like the guy who posted the video who said, "This song is funny as hell!"  

Hello? Hell isn't funny, dude.  

Now, baseball cards on the back of a cereal box -- that's funny!

Especially when you get a card of a future manager of the Seattle Mariners (for all of 217 games, mind you).  But really, was Post hard up for players to put on the cards in 1961? Seriously, Cottier hit .227/.273/.301 in 254 plate appearances.  By the time this card came out, it was not Cottier's third season with the Braves, either -- he was traded in December of 1960 with Bill Bruton, Dick Brown, and Terry Fox to the Detroit Tigers for Frank Bolling and Neil Chrisley.  Then, two months into the 1961 season, Cottier was sent to the Washington Senators for Hal Woodeshick.  

No matter -- these cards are awesome...even if Al Spangler is trying to catch flies with his open mouth.

"T.N.T."

T.N.T. was always a favorite song of mine.  I love the introduction in particular -- great guitar riff, the chorus of "oi!" over and over, building to the first stanza of the song.  Just a fantastic song.

To go with it?  A fantastic card:

A 2005 Topps Finest Blue Refractor serial numbered out of 299, of course.  The blue refractor here is a very busy design, but it goes well with the Brewers blue jersey that Ben Sheets is wearing in this photo.  

"Chase the Ace"

A strange instrumental on the "Who Made Who" album.  It's not strange musically, to be fair, but it's just weird to have a band putting out a 3-minute-long instrumental.  Perhaps it was a song that they liked the guitar lick but couldn't come up with any lyrics for Brian Johnson to choke out for it.  Maybe it was just filler.  Who knows...

It's the way I feel about this card too:

The whole "Sample" card fad that Donruss in particular engaged in during the 1980s and 1990s -- ostensibly to promote their new releases to card shops but more likely just an excuse to get collectors thinking that there were really rare cards to chase.  This one, for instance, says "Promo/5000" on the back.  It's cool and all -- I'm glad to add it to my Molitor collection.  

It's just makes me scratch my head a little bit.  Then again, Angus warned me that he likes oddballs like I do, so I should have expected this, right?

"Back in Black"

If you're going to listen to AC/DC, you are going to hear "Back in Black." It's what they do, and it's the album that made them even more famous than before.  It also let the world know that all Aussie singers pretty much can scream equally as well when Brian Johnson replaced the deceased Bon Scott after Scott died from acute alcohol poisoning.  Mutt Lange produced the album, so there are plenty of hooks and catchy sounding songs.

If you're getting cards from Angus -- well, if I am getting cards from Angus -- I get a lot of O-Pee-Chee.  It's what I need.

I do love these O-Pee-Chees, even O-Pee-Chees might have been the second showing of Topps parallels (the Venezuelan cards are the first, I guess).  It's strange -- I don't mind the O-Pee-Chees (or the 1984 Nestle, even), but the rash of parallels in nearly every product these days can get a bit annoying to me.  It might be the serial numbered stuff -- I like to feel like I have a chance to get the cards, I suppose.

Still, who would turn away an O-Pee-Chee?

"You Shook Me All Night Long"

I am a total sucker for this song. Always have been.  From the first time I recall hearing it, I was hooked.  It's a Mutt Lange special -- catchy, plenty of guitar riffs and hooks that stick in your head, and generally a fun song.  

What cards am I a total sucker for?

Well, to be fair, I'm pretty much a total sucker for anything that pictures a Milwaukee Brewers player, but to be more specific, I love the Archives stuff.  Whether it's the "Fan Favorites" version of Paul Molitor here, or the more recent incarnations of Archives (about which my main beef is "Too many Yankees. Not enough Brewers."), I love the reuse of 1970s and 1980s (and early 1990s) designs.  That's because that is when I collected initially, of course -- it's the love of the familiar.  

Not unlike listening to AC/DC's songs from the early 1980s.  It makes me feel like a 16-year-old high school kid just a little bit.  And as I trudge loudly into my mid-40s, I rather enjoy that little bit of the Fountain of Youth.

Thanks, Angus!