Who can blame themselves for being way too preoccupied with that cyborg-looking nipple that slipped out early 2004, then overlooking Janet Jackson’s “R+B Junkie” and her somewhat underrated (somewhat) Damita Jo in the process. I certainly cannot! The extent to which I chased this edit down, having no idea who was on the hook, hearing those vocals and thriller 80s bass cascade some night at Studio B and never forgetting it, humming it to DJ friends who didn’t know fuck-all what I was talking about, then going to Studio B on Halloween on the off-chance I might hear the thing again and not have the not-balls to go up to the DJ and just ask him what it was–Christ I don’t think I’ve worked this hard in a while. So there I am dressed as Extremely Conspicuous Waldo, “a classic costume but with a twist” I tell people, and suddenly DJs Tim&Tim played it, IT, and I’m too pixellated to remember why I had even shown up in the first place, and I just keep dancing, and I forget to ask what it was.

A miracle: the next week (last week), they posted the mix with tracklist. Some quick Discog-ing and wiki-ing revealed all: Janet was all over this; the original “R+B Junkie” only got promo vinyl’d and fell off rather quickly because lady was pariah; M.E., the UK’s Mark E a/k/a the Jisco Music guy (one of those disco-edit or “songs that sound like disco edit” labels I always wish I kept more of a handle on) had edited the track. Repeat listens also revealed the hook went “I feel like bumping to some old school,” not “I feel like bumping to some law school.”

Anyway I’m in that bliss period with this track right now, just got the white label from some guy in Portland, then had a merely OK digital rip sent to me yesterday. I have this one on repeat–such a rare thing anymore. The sadomasochist in me wants to have more scavenger hunts like this, scribbling down lyrics half-drunk in the “what song is this” section of his Moleskine and then trying to figure out what I wrote the next morning, just like that Seinfeld episode, then googling for help or asking the right people. Same thing happened the first time I heard Theo’s edit of G.Q.’s “Lies”, though now everybody knows that one.

Golf Channel Recordings/ Channel-001
[Listen]
[Nick Sylvester]