The ultimate in West African psychedelic funk. The first of their kind, Ofege was a band of college students from St. Gregory’s College, in Lagos, Nigeria. I read somewhere that they were “influenced by Nigerian bands BLO, The Funkees and the Black Company as well as overseas bands like Led Zeppelin and Santana” but I’m not sure if that actually begins to approximate their sound. I suppose the closest kin they had were BLO, but Ofege were a bit more raw, a bit more amateur (in a good way). Like Shorty and The Jr. Kools in comparison to Kool and the Gang (or something like that. Whatever the case, Ofege succeeded in creating a debut album drenched with fuzz guitar, plaintive, wailing vocals and a backbeat as influenced by James Brown as it is by Fela Kuti. It’s a unique, raw, beautiful take on the psychedelic sound. Though they recorded a few more albums in the mid to late 70s which are ostensibly “funkier” than their debut, none possess the charm of Try and Love. Check “Gbe Me Lo,” the sole instrumental on the album and the reason that crusty psych geezers shelled out four figures for this album before the days of eBay.
Tracklist:
01.Nobody Fails 4:24
02.Whizzy Ilabo 3:32
03.Gbe Mi Lo 4:15
04.Try and Love 4:19
05.It's Not Easy 4:25
06.Ofege 4:00
07.You Say No 4:09
08.Lead Me On 3:23
Ofege:
Melvin "Noks" Ukachi - vocals
Soga Benson - guitar
Dapo Olumide - keyboards
Paul Allade - bass, vocals
M-Ike Meme - drums, vocals
Felix Inneh - percussions
01.Nobody Fails 4:24
02.Whizzy Ilabo 3:32
03.Gbe Mi Lo 4:15
04.Try and Love 4:19
05.It's Not Easy 4:25
06.Ofege 4:00
07.You Say No 4:09
08.Lead Me On 3:23
Ofege:
Melvin "Noks" Ukachi - vocals
Soga Benson - guitar
Dapo Olumide - keyboards
Paul Allade - bass, vocals
M-Ike Meme - drums, vocals
Felix Inneh - percussions
5 commenti:
flac cue log scans
why cbnnot I download? all I get are error messages. can you use something other than netups?
Comband Razor described them as "a cross between the Bay City Rollers and Santana". He also said "It's clear that for Ofege, songs were largely incidental, little more than excuses to launch into insane, distorted guitar solos. It's also very clear that they smoked a lot of weed."
I would like to make a correction to the band line up.
Soga Benson was actually the lead guitarist while Felix Inneh was the percussionist.
The correct band line up should be as follows:
* Melvin "Noks" Ukachi (vocals),
* Soga Benson (guitar),
* Dapo Olumide (keyboards),
* Paul Allade (bass, vocals),
* M-Ike Meme (drums, vocals),
* Felix Inneh (percussions)
You may wish to effect the necessary correction to your post for posterity's sake. If yo check the album credits you will find that nowhere is Felix credited with playing the guitar.
info from ex Gregorian from the 1969/1970.
Thx Marco :)
Thank you so much adam for pointing this out, I immediately proceeded to change the information about the band members. many thanks my friend!
can you please fix the flac link i'd love to listen to this
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