Friday Night Music Club

Without wishing to bang on about my tech issues yet again, were it not for the heat preventing me from sleeping, there may well have not been a shiny new playlist for you tonight.

I know, how ever would you have coped, right?

So my laptop continues to play tricks on me, seemingly picking a random program to banjax. This week, it was my mixing software program, which decided to crash every time it got to a certain song. Every one’s a critic.

And then, when I’d finally sorted that out, I managed to make an absolute hash of one the mixes, which really annoyed me as I thought I’d got all of the rest spot on.

So I practiced the one I messed up, got it right (Hoorah!) then got one of the later ones wrong (Hurroo!). And so it went on and on.

If I told you that I have listened to the opening song of tonight’s mix 19 times before something went tits-up later down the line, you’ll understand what I mean when I say that this mix, above any I’ve done, was a test of my patience, my will-power and my determination.

I hope you think it was worth it, and that by the end you’ll be dancing like nobody’s watching. Or, if you prefer, like the lady in the gif up top: dancing like everybody else is facing in the opposite direction, with good reason.

Disclaimer time (having listened to this mix as I was writing this and spotted a couple of blips that were nowt to do with me): any skips or jumps are down to the mixing software or the uploading process; any shonky mixes are down to me; all song choices are mine.

So let’s crack on, shall we?

Friday Night Music Club Vol 15

And here’s your tracklisting and sleeve notes:

Since I mentioned the song which got into a spot of bother by sampling tonight’s opening tune last week, it seemed only logical to post it:

1. The Andrew Oldham Orchestra – The Last Time

With the sad passing this week of Lamont Dozier, it seemed only right to include something from the mighty body of work that is that of Holland/Dozier/Holland. Following on from the opening track, this seemed a natural follow up:

2. The Supremes – I Hear a Symphony

Not long after I moved to London, my mate Ferg (hello!) persuaded me to go to The Horatia, a pub on Holloway Road in North London, to see Greg Wilson DJing. Whilst I have to admit to not having particularly high expectations – “I play bars in North London, and I’m not very good – why should I pay to see this bloke I’ve never heard of?” I said. “Because you’ll love him,” replied Ferg, and my God he was right.

Here he is adding some extra oomph – not that any is needed – to The Third Degree’s cover of Duffy’s Mercy, a cover so good, so authentic, that many, including my good self, assumed that Duffy’s version must be the cover, which must have delighted her once she had escaped from her kidnappers:

3. The Third Degree – Mercy (Greg Wilson Re-Edit)

Keeping the groove going, another cover, this time by Sharon Jones, seemingly minus her Dap-Kings, although I suspect they are just uncredited, because this sure sounds like them:

4. Sharon Jones – I Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In

And since we’re on cover versions by dead soul singers, here’s one by a much-missed performer who utilised the skills of the aforementioned Dap-Kings on her Back to Black album and then as her touring band:

5. Mark Ronson feat. Amy Winehouse- Valerie

Next up, one of a clutch of my favourite singles by an often-derided band, although the lead singer is a much beloved presenter on 6Music these days. I thought I’d go for one which doesn’t get an airing as much as the others. Cos that’s what I do:

6. Fun Lovin’ Criminals – Korean Bodega

Something new-ish next (by which I mean, released in 2020), by one of those bands who seem to have such a dull name, they’ll never show up on an internet search. Indeed, when I typed their name into Google, I got taken to a forum discussing the current manager of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club:

7. Pottery – Texas Drums Pt I & II

The mix of the next song is not the one that I wanted to post. Somewhere on some mix CD buried in a box I have a really great version with a female vocal on it. But can I locate it, or find the version in question online? No. So, you’ll have to make do with Tom Middleton, who adds his trademark spacey whooshing and swirling noises to this classic that the Orbital boys released under a nom de plume:

8. Golden Girls – Kinetic (Tom Middleton 2008 Remix)

Time for an old skool banger, or, as they were known round our way back in Cardiff, a City Hall Classic:

9. K-Klass – Rhythm Is A Mystery

Kate Bush is very en vogue again at the moment, thanks to the inclusion of her 1985 hit, Running Up That Hill, in Netflix’s nostalgic sci-fi hit Stranger Things. Here, then, is the Utah Saints sampling and snipping La Lady Bush:

10. Utah Saints – Something Good (Van She Tec Mix)

I need to wean myself off Soulwax, for they seem to appear in the majority of the mixes I do in one way or another. True to form, here they are again:

11. MGMT – Kids (Soulwax Remix)

I’ve gone remix-crazy this week; next up is Superchumbo making the bassline on an already quite dirty Basement Jaxx tune utterly filthy:

12. Basement Jaxx – Get Me Off (Superchumbo Supergetoff Remix)

And somehow, this song seemed a fine and natural way to round things off for another week, and so imagine my delight when I found it could be mixed into the Basement Jaxx tune, despite it being in no way a club banger:

13. The Cure – Let’s Go To Bed

Footnote: I’ve only realised as I wrote this that if one were to read the last three titles alone, without the mention of any remix, it doesn’t paint a great picture of yours truly.

Kids. Get Me Off. Let’s Go To Bed.

Please don’t put me on a sex pest register.

More soon.

Friday Night Music Club

Hello.

It’s Friday.

It’s what can comfortably be construed as Night.

Which means it’s time for some Music Club action.

Happy to oblige. Here’s Volume 4 of the monster that was the 4th part of the original mix, if that make sense.

Last week, I said this: “Volume 4 clocked in at 4:41 minutes, so to make it to a round hour, I either had to add 20 minutes or lose 41. You can guess which of the two won, I think.”

And this week you’ll see how those fruits are born, with a load of tunes which weren’t in the original 4:41 mix, but which – I think, I hope – sit just beautifully amongst it all.

For example, there’s Air, Robbie and the Pet Shop Boys at the top of the mix, and at the end a majestic Greg Wilson mash-up of Massive Attack, The Rolling Stones and Amerie’s 1 Thing, the latter of which is grossly overlooked because a) it happened to be released at roughly the same time as Beyonce’s Crazy in Love, and b) it sounds not entirely dissimilar to Beyonce’s Crazy in Love.

And yes, when I say Robbie I mean Robbie Williams – deal with it.

I’ll let you be the judge:

Friday Night Music Club Vol 4.4

And here’s your track-listing:

1. Air – Sexy Boy
2. Robbie Williams – No Regrets
3. Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield – What Have I Done To Deserve This?
4. Phoebe Bridgers – Kyoto
5. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – Fresher Than the Sweetness in Water
6. Gruff Rhys – Sensations In The Dark
7. Wreckless Eric – Whole Wide World
8. Half Man Half Biscuit – Corgi Registered Friends
9. Goldie Lookin’ Chain – 21 Ounces
10. Donna Allen – Serious
11. Santogold – L.E.S. Artistes
12. M.I.A. – Paper Planes
13. Beastie Boys – Make Some Noise
14. Jurassic 5 – Concrete Schoolyard
15. Charles Wright & The Watts 103 Street Rhythm Band – Express Yourself
16. Greg Wilson – Two Sides Of Sympathy

I dunno what I did, but I don’t even feel the need to post my usual “there may be some fuck-ups” disclaimer this week. Sounds alright to me. Dig it.

More soon.

Be Llŷrious

Three years ago today, my bestest buddy Llŷr passed away.

Three years. Where on earth did that go?

I still think about him and miss him every day, and I don’t think that will ever change, nor would I want it to. Yet it just doesn’t seem possible that so long has passed without seeing him.

When I’ve written about Llŷr before, the focus has been very much on the music, the records that remind me of him.

But, as I alluded to in my post shortly after he passed, when we lived together, as well as the music, there was an awful lot of television watching which forged bonds between us.

I often watch Gogglebox – a show which, for the uninitiated, films people at home watching TV and talking about it (and whatever else is going on in their life) – and I think: they missed a trick by not having Llŷr and I on board for this.

For every evening spent watching TV – which, to be honest, when we weren’t out and about together around Cardiff, was pretty much every night – was a night when we would both be creasing up, each trying to make the other laugh so hard about whatever we were watching that snot might come out of the nose.

Sure, there are many many songs which remind me of him, but it’s the laughing that I miss so much now that’s he not around anymore.

*****

I won’t pretend that our taste in TV was perfectly aligned; again, as alluded to previously, Llŷr was much more interested in the whole Pop Idol/X Factor/American Idol shenanigans than I was, but there was definitely a shared love of certain reality shows.

Obviously, there was Big Brother, which first aired around the time we first began sharing a flat, and which we both watched almost religiously, to the point where on more than one occasion we turned down an invitation to go out on a Friday night because we didn’t want that week’s eviction to be subject to any bar-room TV spoilers.

There was a dating show, aired on BBC2, called Would Like To Meet, where a panel of three experts would set some loveless sap a number of challenges designed to bolster their confidence. In the climax of the show, they’d go on a blind date which they were expected to ace, having taken on board all of the advice they had been given.

Llŷr and I loved this show, partly because we both we both quite fancied one of the panel – the appropriately named sexpert Tracey Cox – but mostly because we thrived on some of the situations the subjects were put into to try and bolster their self-esteem.

Most notably – and I wish I could find a clip of this, but alas, I cannot – a girl who was instructed to stand by the magazine rack in WH Smiths at lunchtime and try to engage men reading magazines in conversation.

Thankfully, her very presence prevented any – ahem – surfers of the “top shelf”, but one guy picked up a music magazine, Q or Mojo or some such, whereupon he was approached by the girl asking “Excuse me, can you tell me which tunes are excellent please?”

This made Llŷr and I howl, and forever afterwards whenever we were out and a tune got played which one of us failed to recognise, we would turn to each other and say “Excuse me, is this tune excellent?”

As with many private jokes, you probably had to be there. But that phrase still rings in my head, especially whenever I’m in a newsagents.

The other show we loved was Channel 4’s Faking It, where somebody was plucked from their normal job and way of life and given four weeks to learn a completely new and opposing skill, tested at the end of the show by a panel of experts who would try and snuffle out the imposter.

There are a couple of episodes which normally attract the most attention – timid vicar becomes a car salesman, burly sailor becomes a drag queen – but the episode which Llŷr and I loved was an early episode, where a young female classical cellist (Sian – no relation), who has not one clue about youth culture and clubland, had four weeks to pass herself off as a club DJ.

For those four weeks, she goes to live with hardcore DJ Anne Savage, who is supposed to be her mentor, but in actual fact it’s Savage’s mate Lottie, also a renowned DJ, who does much of the tutoring.

This is especially poignant for me, as Llŷr and I saw Lottie DJ a few times, the most auspicious of which was when we happened to stumble on her playing a mid-afternoon/early evening set as a favour to the landlord of Progress Bar in Tufnell Park. It was the day after we had been to Fatboy Slim’s legendary Beach Boutique 2 so we were both, I think it’s fair to say, a little worse for wear. Still, Lottie was kind enough to pose for some pictures with Llŷr, which we’ve tried to source and share here, but sadly we’ve not managed to track down. So here’s a picture of Lottie instead; you’ll be able to see why Llŷr was so keen – other than her DJ’ing prowess, of course – to have the moment he met her captured for posterity (on film, I mean. We didn’t kidnap her, or begin to plot to, honest!):

The other reason Lottie’s involvement is relevant is because it was her that I saw the first time I went clubbing after Llŷr got ill and wasn’t able to go anymore. It was at The Emporium in Cardiff – sadly a venue no more, but without doubt the greatest club I have ever been to. I may have written about it before; it will certainly crop up again at some point. Needless to say, Llŷr had many fun nights out there.

Anyway, I digress. Back to Faking It. At the end of the four weeks, Sian has to play a set to a packed club, which included four club promoters and DJs and the like; they had to try and pick her out from amongst three other female DJs, whilst she tries to convince them that she was not the one who only started DJing four weeks ago.

I wanted to post the entire episode here, but can’t find it to share. It is available to watch on Channel 4’s streaming service All4, and if you’re able to, I’d urge you to watch it. Even if you find dance music generally a bit meh, it’s one of the most amazing and uplifting pieces of television, watching this young woman blossom and come out of her shell, battle all the forces against her (which were mostly of her own, and her upbringing’s making), and discover and reclaim her lost youth.

There is an edited version of the episode on YouTube, which, if you do want to watch the whole show and avoid spoilers, I would not recommend you watch:

If that does nothing else, it will make you nostalgic for the days when you could smoke fags indoors.

Llŷr and I watched many, many hours of television together when we shared the Flat of Filth and then the House of No Housework, but there’s only a few which really stick in my mind. This is one of them, and when I watched it again the other day, I found myself laughing, smiling and sobbing in equal measure.

So, to wrap things up for today, remixed by the great Greg Wilson, an appropriate tune, which just so happens to pop up in (Coming Soon!) Friday Night Music Club Vol 6.4. It’s also a tune which I don’t know that Llŷr ever heard (I mean this mix, of course he would have known the original version), but I’m damn sure he would have loved – the sentiment (of the title at least) utterly sums up him and his loveably jokey ways perfectly:

Electronic – Getting Away With It (Greg Wilson Edit)

And, just in case you want more evidence of Llŷr’s love of television, can I point you in the direction of one edition of The Xennial Dome podcast, where Llŷr’s younger sister, the talented, funny and gorgeous actor Sian Reese-Williams, talks about, amongst other things, growing up and being obsessed with – and acting out – public service adverts from TV with Llŷr. It’s a really lovely hour, which made me laugh a lot and blub a little too:

The Xennial Dome featuring Sian Reese Williams

Disappointingly, there is no mention of Sian’s alleged membership of 90s Britpop band Gene’s fanclub in there.

More soon.

Late Night Stargazing

I can’t put my hand on my heart and say I’m particularly fond of The XX, which I realise leaves me out on a bit of limb compared to many of my peers here in the blogosphere. Dunno what it is, they just don’t do anything for me.

I can put my hand on my heart and say that I’m particularly fond of much that Greg Wilson does though.

Were it not for having Mr Wilson’s stamp of approval, I probably wouldn’t have given this a second listen:

The XX – Night Time (Greg Wilson Remix)

Pretty glad I did though.

More soon.