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.

I’m Not Too Keen on Mondays

Morning all.

It’s an Old Skool classic for your Monday motivation this week.

K-Klass – Rhythm Is A Mystery

Oi, oi!

(More soon)

Friday Night Music Club

It’s a very special Friday Night Music Club this week for two reasons: firstly, in the UK it’s Easter Weekend, so a long weekend (No work til Tuesday!); secondly, as I mentioned in last week’s post, I’m going to see Underworld tonight.

In my younger days, I was always quite resistant to dance music. If a tune didn’t have guitars on it, I wasn’t interested.

But over the years, my resistance got chipped away, and so I thought tonight I’d play you a selection of dance tunes which were milestones for me.

So, first up is a stone-cold classic, the biggest selling 12″ of all time:

191. New Order – Blue Monday

Now I wish I could say that I bought this when it first came out. Well, I could say that, but it’d be a big fat whopping lie. In 1983, I had no idea who Joy Division were, or that New Order had risen from their ashes, but I did see the now legendary appearance on Top of The Pops where they insisted on playing Blue Monday live, and after which, famously, the single went down in the charts.

In 1988 I went away to college, and by 1989 I was DJing the Indie Night every other Tuesday. The night was, frankly, dieing on its arse. Some weeks we were lucky to get 20 people through the door. And then three things happened:

1. Rave culture kicked in
2. Closely followed by “Madchester”
3. A load of Indie bands that I liked suddenly started messing around with dance beats and getting their records remixed by respected DJs.

And so suddenly, we were able to play all of these great records (not the rave ones, though) at our little Indie Night and so for a very short while these records moved centre stage and we had our finger right on the pulse.

192. Primal Scream – Loaded (Edit)

Did you manage to get the “Oh Yeah!” bit in the right place? I always feel so chuffed when I do. The simple pleasures that life brings, eh? Pathetic really.

One Tuesday night, a couple of lads from Nottingham, decked out in hooded tops and flared jeans, pressed their faces up against the shatterproof glass which surrounded the DJ booth in the Students Union and mouthed “Got any Mondays?” at me. I hadn’t (my finger wasn’t quite on the pulse at this point, more tapping to see if I could find a good vein) but said if they wanted to bring some in I’d be happy to play it. 10 minutes later, after they had bombed back to their flat to collect, I had the next record held in my hands. The title intrigued me. I played it. The dance floor didn’t exactly fill, but quite a few joined the two lads Daints and Peetey (the former of which I would form a band with shortly afterwards) as they started to frug away in what I learned sooner after was a fair approximation of Bez:

193. Happy Mondays – 24 Hour Party People

Many years later, when I had finally started going to club nights, we went to see Jon Carter play in The Emporium in Cardiff. I remember I was just leaving the dancefloor when the vocal part of “24 Hour Party People” kicked in and I found myself scrabbling to get back to the dance floor sharpish. One of the biggest, non-checmically induced, rushes I ever had.

There was another band who ditched their early sound to start producing records which were neither Rave nor Madchester, a band I loved when they were Grebo, and loved even more when they started messing around with loops and samples. This is one of their last singles, probably one of my favourites, which always takes me back to a basement indie club in Cardiff called G.W.’s that Daints and I often frequented after we’d left college:

194. Pop Will Eat Itself – R.S.V.P. (7” Mix)

The success in reviving the Indie Night, for which I naturally took all the credit, led to me being asked to co-DJ the Saturday night slot with a lad who we nick-named Dave Doubledecks on account of him running his own mobile DJ outfit, but whose name was actually Phil. This night exposed me to a great many other dance records which were by now, circa 1990, the main staple of the UK Charts, and there were some that, much as I absolutely no way on earth would have admitted to liking at the time, I secretly did, and love to this day. I make no apologies for their inclusion here. So there.

First up, an early project by one William Orbit:

195. Bassomatic – Fascinating Rhythm (7′ Mix)

The first time I heard the next record, I was at the club night at the Students Union, in all honesty cribbing up on what I could play the following Saturday night. The DJ dropped this and I was stunned. Not because of the saucy “Je T’aime”-ness of the vocal track, but because a record that slows down that much in the middle just shouldn’t work. It did though; the place went fucking apeshit for it.

196. Lil Louis – French Kiss (Original Mix)

Much as you might hate this next record, deride it for pinching the vocals from Loleatta Holloway’s “Love Sensation” and then getting a model to mime to it, in 1989 (and surprisingly often these days) if you wanted to get everyone in a Students Union chart night to dance, this was your weapon of choice:

197. Black Box – Ride On Time

These days better known as producers, remixers, call them what you will, this next lot, appropriately, met at The Hacienda in 1988:

198. K-Klass – Rhythm Is A Mystery

Not really a “dance” record as such, next is one of the greatest records ever made, a guaranteed floor-filler, and the subject of one of the biggest travesties in UK Chart history:

 

200. Deee-Lite – Groove Is In The Heart (Peanut Butter Radio Mix)

I say travesties because this record only ever got to Number 2 in the UK Charts. It had sold exactly the same amount of copies to be the joint number-one , along with “The Joker” by The Steve Miller Band, a record which had been re-released due to its use in a Levi Jeans ad. “Groove…”‘s placing second was due to a rule instituted in the 1980s, which stated that in the event of a tie, the single with sales that had increased most from the previous week would reside above the other. The week before, “The Joker” had been one position lower in the chart the previous week than “Groove Is in The Heart”, and thus “The Joker” was therefore deemed to be the bigger-selling of the two.

This was the first and only time the rule was ever implemented, and it’s since been ditched. Not that anyone pays attention to the Charts anymore.

Right, I could literally sit here and post hundreds of these until well into the wee small hours, but if I don’t get moving soon I’ll be missing the gig tonight.

So I’m going to sign off by breaking the golden rule of any mix-tape, CD compilation, or playlist: by playing three records by the same artiste.

So, from the first Underworld album I ever bought at the time it was released, “Beaucoup Fish”, their third with Darren Emerson having joined their ranks (but fifth overall), and which swiftly led to me going out and buying the previous two:

201. Underworld – Push Upstairs

And finally, from their “A Hundred Days Off” album, possibly, probably, my favourite track by them:

202. Underworld – Two Months Off (King Unique Sunspots – Vocal mix)

I say probably, as it’s a pretty bloody close call with this:

203. Underworld – Cowgirl (Bedrock Mix)

Hopefully, we’ll get some, if not all, of them tonight.

And I’ll leave you with their latest single, the opening track from their “Barbara, Barbara, We Face A Shining Future” album, and which has first song of the night written all over it.

More soon.