Brooklyn label Nature Sounds reissued Common’s 1992 debut album, Can I Borrow a Dollar?, for this year’s Record Store Day, but last week’s most intriguing new Common release came out on an entirely different label and isn’t in brick-and-mortar stores at all yet. Last Wednesday, local DJ and record collector Marc Davis announced that his microlabel Black Pegasus was putting out a seven-inch of two previously unissued recordings from Common’s Can I Borrow a Dollar? sessions: “U.A.C. Freestyle” and an alternate take of album cut “Charms Alarm.”
On Tuesday I called Davis to talk about Black Pegasus, Common, and the Seven Sense series. Below is an edited version of our conversation.
Common, he’s behind this with us, and pushing this with us, to release this to the public. My motto is, “The first time you hear music, it’s new music.” It doesn’t matter when it was created.
In the late 80s, I was a collector of early house-music stuff. From the Ron Hardy tapes to the Frankie Knuckles tapes, all the way to Lee Collins tapes, to getting stuff out of New York, which was the Kool DJ Red Alert and Chuck Chillout tapes. I noticed certain things on those tapes were either rare 12-inches or acetates, and those things didn’t see the light of day—some of those releases. So I just held on to those tapes.
Back to the Common seven-inch—how many copies are available? I know it’s available on Big Cartel, but is it going to be available in record stores?
