Its been five months since I last rummaged through my analogue past, otherwise known as the boxes of C90’s and racks of vinyl that overstuff my flat. Hopefully this will be the first of a few more regular “Analogue Bye Bye’s“.
25 years ago this month Greg Wilson became the first UK DJ to mix Live on national TV when he demonstrated his skills on the 1’s and 2’s to a rather flummoxed looking Jools Holland.
Jools: “Don’t you think the scratching thing… might annoy the people who spent all that time making the records?”
Visit Greg’s site for tonnes of fascinating historical goodness, and myspace for proof aplenty of his equally stellar future.
SOLID STEEL
Coldcut’s legendary Solid Steel radio showis a relative whippersnapper at only 20 years old this year, but they’re marking the occasion by releasing classic shows from the archive. Bosbos.net is the place to go for official shows dating all the way back to the pirate radio days of ‘88.
On this site I’ll be continuing with the irregular MP3’s of old shows that have proven surprisingly popular for something I thought was a tad self indulgent when I started putting them up early last year. As always apologies for the questionable audio quality, the haphazard pause button editing, and the all too frequent points where Id either nod off or forget to flip the tape over!
This edition from early February ‘92 starts off in typical “broadest beats” style with The Sex Pistols rubbing shoulders with the Rebel MC. There’s a Coldcut Nervous Records Mastermix featuring Jazzy Joints “People Hold On” sampling “Give A Little Love“, which Jon jokingly threatens to get the lawyers on.
With Bobby Konders, Tito Puente, Shut Up And Dance and a 2nd mix titled “Nervous System” its pretty much a typically untypical show. Acen’s rave classic “Close Your Eyes” continues the cheeky sampling theme with huge slurps from George Harrison. It landed them in court at the time, and Coldcut see the funny side saying “In America they put you in the electric chair for sampling like that!“.
Blog Fresh Radio is a weekly show that interviews obsessive music bloggers from around the world, getting them to talk about and spin their current hottest tune.
From their first show onwards they’ve been flatteringly asking me to appear but for various reasons it never seemed to happened. Well, finally they tracked me down, tickled me under the chin, told me I was very very special, and before I knew it I was extolling the virtues of the splendid Superimposers over a transatlantic phone line.
Who knew I had such a gift for incoherent rambling!? Fortunately the music speaks for itself, and there are loads of other fine bloggers every week digging into the crate marked “ones to watch“.
Listening to glorious blues funk soup of The Heavy, its not difficult to spot their influences. Now you no longer need to guess as last year they put together a mix packed full of Zepellin, Stooges, The Beatles, Muddy Waters and Ghostface Killah.
Back in November an email from Davey MacManus, lead singer of The Crimea popped into my inbox offering the chance to host an exclusive version of their new single “Loop A Loop“.
As if that wasn’t exciting enough he’d also picked up on my shameless plugging of Stuart James, and asked “would I be interested in Stuart’s version of the track? (attached)”
Now three months later its finally release time, and over a dozen versions of the tune are being released solely through music blogs. The temptation to post before time has been unbearable, and it would definitly have featured in my top 150 of last year were it not for the fact that doing so would have given the game away.
The mix is as fantastic as you’d expect from a collaboration between a group with the late great John Peels stamp of approval, and a newcomer that Peel would surely have eagerly thrown on at the wrong speed. Stuart’s version inhabits a much darker world than the original stripping everything down to Davey’s “Loop A Loop” refrain, before layering over a thudding drum machine, distorted synth and of course his trademark machine gun poetry. Mid way through it cuts to just the drum beat and Stuart’s vocals with devastating effect.
“the frailty of human bones,
the voice of moderation in the distance,
Elvis on the answer phone”
Grab the MP3 below, and visit the other blogs to nab more mixes from people like Akira The Don.
Releasing 16 totally free variations of the single spread around music blogs is a typically leftfield decision from a group who were offering FREE album downloads when Thom Yorke was still going “MP…what?“. Their latest “Secrets Of The Witching Hour“ has clocked up almost 100,000 downloads so far and I obviously recomend you do the same!
Rough Trade may have put a freeze on their in-store gigs due to the fallout from a few thousand Radiohead fans trying to squeeze into their shop, but London is still well served with intimate store performances from the finest up and coming bands. Chief among those still serving up free delights are the small but perfectly formed Puregroove Records in Archway (Website / Blog / PuregrooveTV).
A few days after Supergrass packed the store, the merchandise table was moved to the side once again to make room for School of Language, the solo project from Field Music’s David Brewis. Described by Frank Sidebottom as “very very catchy“ - and who am I to argue with Frank - Brewis has created that rarest of beasts, the side project that outshines the “main” band.
The first of the four “Rockist” parts that define the album begins with Brewis strikingly looping up vowel sounds “Oh Ah Ee Oh“. Over this he adds guitar and the first of many examples of his gift for fine melodies “What’s that, You said?“. Some may find the repeated “Oh Ah Ee” grating especially as on record part 2 immediately follows deconstructing and distorting the phrase, but I wouldn’t be one of them. Indeed as Brewis perched on his stool in front of me delivering a guitar/vocal only “Rockist (Part 1)” (Youtube below) the urge to add my own Oh Ah Ee’s was almost unbearable!
Taking gulps from his mug of tea between tracks Brewis demonstrated the quality of the song writing more than holds up to a striped back solo performance. His melodies are often compared to XTC but for School Of Languages debut is most comparable to McCartney I. Freed from the constraints of a group Brewis is more experimental without ever losing his inherent song craft.
The McCartney/Wings sound is most evident on highlights “This Is No Fun“, “Keep Your Water” and bonus track “No Control” which has an absolute killer drum guitar riff which probably deserves a slightly better song.
Glancing across at the discount seven pounds CD shelf Brewis comments on the lack of Roxy Music on display before covering Ferry’s “If There Is Something” (apparently available as is annoyingly becoming common, exclusively on itunes).
Not content with simply providing a free gig, during the after show signing Brewis threw in a bit of literary advice too.
Scrawling “Read “The Underground City” by ML Humes” on my freshly purchased CD he went on to explain that his girlfriend had given him a rare copy of the book, and it also featured on the album cover. Fortunately its just been reprinted in paperback so if any ones interested head as they say to “all good bookstores“.
“Rockist (Part 1)” featured in my top 150 of 07, and despite not being initially that impressed by “Sea From Shore” its an album that rewards repeated listening. The melodies, hooks, and subtle experimentation do their work and before you realise it you’ve got another favourite CD.
Roy Scheider, who died today (Jan 11) should of course be honoured for far more than just his most famous role as the nervy police chief Brody. His ad libbed line “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” may be seared into the public’s consciousness but he was also Oscar nominated for The French Connection & All That Jazz.
This music blog wouldn’t normally cover the passing of actors - no matter how great - but for purely self serving reasons it offers the perfect excuse to post some amazing Jaws related music. Lalo Schifrin’s epic disco take on the theme tune has long been a huge favourite, while sampling pioneers Buchanan & Goodman’s biggest hit “Mr. Jaws” is a noteworthy early example of cut and paste.
Who are the most important figures in Reggae history? Perry, Marley, Dodd, to that list you can add the unlikely name of Sister Mary Ignatius “Iggy” Davies.
For over 60 years she ran the musical programme at Kingston’s Alpha Boys school for “wayward youth”. Under her tuition many of the legends of reggae emerged, or as this BBC Radio 4 documentary puts it “The Nun Who Nurtured Reggae”.
Newsreader Jonathan Charles may not be the most obvious disciple of reggae but his love of the music shines through this engaging show, with contributions from many of her former pupils, and great anecdotes about such things as the nun’s huge record collection and djing skills.
Tony Global aka Floorman clearly knows the shortcut to getting featured on this blog… a heavy dollup of flattery! Fortunatly along with kind words he also sent some very tasty re-edits.
Bloggers favourites Hot Chip are chopped and chipped in fine style:
And as befits a man who’s been DJing and producing for 17 years he can also dig back in those crates for a few classics. The edit of Fantastic Four’s “I Got To Have Your Love” may have already been posted elsewhere but if the music’s this funky who cares if Im totally behind the times. The originals here too just because its so damn good.
As is the way with record companies they apparently dropped the best remix from his new single, but the Plimsouls version is getting plenty of love in cyberspace.
Not content with having a music blog so brilliant it makes other bloggers retire, the people at Dilated Choonz are now posting their own stonkingly good mixes.
Visit Dilated Choonz now to nab an inspired mashup of Roots Manuva and Busy P. Rodney was born to ride that filthy electro sound! Cooler than cooler than cool.
LPX
I posted this the other day but for some reason the MP3 information got lost on the way to the hype machine so I’m putting it up again in a shameless attempt to get more people to listen to it.
The fact that it sounds like Fourtet jamming with a Glockenspiel wielding Patrick Moore should be recommendation enough.
Not content with simply providing a free gig, during the after show signing Brewis threw in a bit of literary advice too.
Not content with having a music blog so brilliant it makes other bloggers retire, the people at Dilated Choonz are now posting their own stonkingly good mixes.